


Without Me, Without You

by Joseph_Nightjar



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sad, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:14:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8325622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joseph_Nightjar/pseuds/Joseph_Nightjar
Summary: Jenna and Josh meant everything to him, but now Jenna was gone forever.Accidents happen.But when they take a loved one away from you, accidents can cause nightmares.





	1. Stay Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!  
> I know it's been a long time since I posted something, but I'm finally going to do so again.  
> Thanks to the Clique for helping me to stay alive during the probably darkest time of my life.  
> This fanfiction will be incredibly sad, but I hope you'll read it anyway.  
> It might will have a happy ending though, I'm not sure about it yet. But we'll see. No promises yet, this is still a work in progress :3

Flashing lights. Loud talking. Gibberish. Nothing made sense.

Darkness. What was this darkness?

He could hear someone talking to him, trying to reach through this thick, black warp of isolation, but the words didn’t reach through.

_Tyler!_

A name. His name? Probably his name. Whose voice was this? A woman? He was too unconscious, too far away to figure it out. His limbs were so heavy and he felt tired. So incredibly tired.

_Help me… can’t… breathe… help..._

Then there was nothing but darkness. It embraced him with its warm hands and tucked him in like a mother, like a protector. There was no pain here, no bad feelings. Simple, gentle nothingness.

He couldn’t tell how long he had been in there, in this dark, empty room, but eventually, something started moving. It was still too dark to see something, but the vibration in the ground gave it away.

_Oh fuck… Tyler…_

Someone was sobbing. This time it was another voice. So familiar. Whose voice was this? Why wasn’t he able to tell? The person knew him, so he should know this person. Or did he lose his memory? How did he get here?

Car. He had been in a car. A red truck. A crash… There had been an accident. He had been in a car accident.

‘My name is Tyler. I was in a car crash.’, he repeated to make sure that this thought wouldn’t fade like everything else. There must be a way to get his memory back.

Tyler tried to focus. What did happen?

There was a flash, like a struck from a lightning, a memory coming back to him.

_“Come on, honey! We’re late!”_

_“Don’t rush, we have cake and a super cool sweater! He won’t mind if we’re late!”_

_“Anyway, get your damn shoes now!”_

_A high giggle and a kiss on his forehead. A beautiful woman. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Jenna. Jenna. His wife._

Tyler was back in the black room.

‘My name is Tyler, I was in a car crash, I have a wife, her name is Jenna. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Where is she?’, he repeated to make sure that he didn’t forget anything. This room was so vast, so dark, so comprehensive. Tyler knew it wanted to keep him in here forever, but he needed to get out. He needed to find Jenna. And this other person they had wanted to visit. They were the key. If he found his memory, maybe he would get out of here? Or maybe all of this was just a bad dream and he simply needed to wake up?

No, this was different. There was a kind of pain in this numbness, a pain that grew stronger, feeling like a knife that tried to cut him out of this darkness. Once again he tried to focus. Another light, another memory...

_“Will you and Jenna come to my birthday party?”_

_“Sure! She’s already planning the cake. I told her no bananas.”_

_Josh laughed and Jenna rolled her eyes._

_“Yeah… It’s like he has some kind of bananaphobia. I can’t even buy bananas without him acting like a cat in a bathtub!”_

_“Very funny, sweetheart.”_

Tyler was back in the dark room again, but this time, it had been the pain that had dragged him back from his memory.

“My name is Tyler, I was in a car crash, I have a wife, her name is Jenna, I have a friend, his name is Josh. We were on our way to his birthday party…”, he repeated again, but the pain was overwhelming by now. He wanted to scream, needed to scream, but there was no real sound coming out of his mouth.

“Help me, god please help me…”

The darkness felt different now, as if it wanted to strangle him, took his breath away until he was barely able to grab a single thought anymore. Was this the end? Where was the light? Where was the tunnel? Why did he have to suffer?!

He wanted to pray, wanted to ask for forgiveness, but there was no energy left inside him.

Again he could hear people talk, felt the vibration on the floor, as if someone was running, no, more than one person. They were running and talking nervously.

Then everything went silent again, at least for a moment… What had happened? Who are those people? What was going on?

Tyler looked around and tried to find an answer, even though he already knew there weren’t many possibilities.

“Either I’m dead or in a hospital…”

He thought about it for a while, but hospital seemed to be more likely. The people around him must be nurses and doctors, that pain had probably been some kind of heart attack… He was not yet dead, but he must be dying.

“I can’t die. It’s not my time yet. It’s not my time, did you hear me?! I have a purpose!”, he screamed into the darkness, but there was no answer, no sound coming bacḱ. Tyler had always been a faithful Christian, but he wasn’t ready to meet his god yet. There was no clear memory, but he knew that there was a purpose for him, he knew he couldn’t just leave…

Another flashback. Another light.

_A stage. Flickering lights. People were screaming, there must be thousands of people._

_“Tyler, help me quickly!”_

_Josh was standing over there, struggling with zipper of his hoodie, angrily trying to open it._

_“Just finally buy a new one!”, Tyler heard himself saying._

_“Funny. You know this is your hoodie. I just wait until you buy a new one and then you can have this one back.”, he said jokingly and Tyler shrugged._

_“You wear my shirts, my pants… even my underwear. I literally stopped caring.”_

_“Because you have way more than me!”_

_They both laughed and entered the stage after Tyler had unzipped Josh’s hoodie. There was an ocean of people waiting for them, screaming and jumping as they saw them. He was scared and confident at the same time… What a weird feeling this was._

Back to the dark room again, but this time it was different. Something seemed to drag him out of there. What was going on? Was he dying? No… there was no pain this time, no people running around, no one was talking. Was he waking up? Maybe all of this had really just been a dream?

“Wake up, Tyler. Wake up. Wake up….WAKE UP!”

He opened his eyes and there was finally light again, but it was so bright that it almost seemed blinding.

“Tyler, Jesus Christ! Nurse!! NURSE!” Even though Tyler couldn’t really see what was going on, he knew that this was Josh’s voice. His memory was back and he finally knew what was real again. It were only his eyes that needed to adjust.

A few seconds later a nurse came in, just after Tyler realized that he wasn’t breathing on his own, but a machine did it for him. There was panic crawling up inside him, but the nurse was already removing the tube from his throat.

“It’s all good, boy. Here you go. Can you breathe?”, the nurse asked as she had removed the tube, and Tyler took a deep breath, satisfied that the tube was gone.

“Where’s my wife? Where’s Jenna?”, he asked with a sore voice, barely able to make a sound, but he needed to know.

The nurse looked startled and then shook her head.

“I don’t know, but you should calm down, you’ve been in a coma for a few days. Let me run some tests and bring in the doc first.”, she replied, but Tyler saw that she was lying, just trying to make excuses for not telling him. There had been a glimpse in her eyes that had given her away.

“Please, I need to see her! She was with me when we had the accident!”, he coughed, looked over to Josh then who had been silently sitting besides his bed the entire time, not letting go of Tyler’s hand. There was this sadness in his face, a sadness that Tyler wasn’t used to see on his best friend’s face.

“Josh…”, he broke the silence between them and Tyler felt Josh’s grip tighten up as his eyes filled with tears.

“Listen, man…”, he started, but there was no need to continue. Tyler knew what Josh’s next words would be, but Josh just leaned forward and pressed Tyler’s hand against his lips, as if he wanted to whisper something, while he was just trying to hold back his tears.

“I’ll get the doctor now.”, the nurse interrupted them, but it was far in the background and the boys didn’t really care about her. She could have stayed in this room without them realizing, for they were in their own world right now. This was just like another dark room, but this time they were in it together.

“How?”, Tyler gently whispered after none of them had said anything for a while, but Josh just looked away. What should he answer? Was there even a proper answer he could give right now? There were no words in this world to explain.

“You’ve been hit by a truck… She… The glass broke and…”

“She suffocated… I remember her saying that… that she can’t breathe…”, Tyler told him and started to cry and tremble uncontrollably. Something broke inside Josh and he couldn’t just watch his best friend like this. Slowly he got up and sat down beside Tyler, put his arms around him and tried to soothe him, but it was clear to him that the crying won’t stop that soon.

“I’m here… I’m here… I promise it’ll be okay, man. I got you…”, he tried to persuade him, but it was hard to get those words out while he was crying himself. Jenna had been an important part of his life as well, she was one of his best friends besides Tyler. And now she was just gone like this.

_I’ll never celebrate my birthday again. Never again._

Josh could feel Tyler’s hands clawing into his back, but it was okay. He knew he needed to hold on to something.

“I got you…”, he whispered again, gently stroking over Tyler’s back and through his hair every now and then. He knew this had always calmed him.  

They were just sitting there like this for quite a while and none of them dared to break the silence. The crying had ceased and now there was just sadness lingering in this room, sadness mixed with the feeling of guilt and emptiness.

It felt like hours before Josh slowly pulled himself out of the embrace, gently framing Tyler’s face with his hands. They both looked into each other’s eyes, remaining silent for another few seconds before Josh finally broke through it.

“I thought I’d lost you too…I know that you’d rather have died with her, but if I had lost you both, I would have been dead by now.”, he admitted and Tyler blinked, releasing a single tear that ran down his cheek. Josh was right about him, he had rather died with her, but his friend’s confession somehow persuaded him to think differently. There was a voice inside him that screamed at him to end it just to see his wife again, but those sad brown eyes kept him alive right now.

“I don’t leave without you.”, there was a lot more Tyler wanted to say, but there was no way he could put his feelings into words. He leaned forward and put a kiss on Josh’s forehead, before he leaned back on the bed, slowly dissociating from everything.

“Can you get the nurse? I’m in pain…”, he whispered, and Josh knew that Tyler was far, far away right now. No matter what he did now, he wouldn’t have any memory of it.

“Of course man… Of course.”


	2. Blurryface

The next few days had been the worst.

Tyler hardly talked, refused to eat and just stared at the ceiling most of the time. Josh stayed with him, never left longer than the few minutes that were needed to go to the bathroom or to get something to eat for himself.

Both their families had been there to look after Tyler, they would have stayed as well, but Tyler had sent them away after a few hours, lying and telling them he needed to rest. He didn’t want to have them around and he didn’t want to hear how sorry they were about Jenna’s death. He just wanted to process what had happened, and the easiest way for him was to write it all down. During the last days he’d filled over twenty pages with lyrics, poetry, with phrases, some scribbles… Normally he would give them to Josh so he could read through them, telling him what he thought about them, but not this time. Tyler wrote them down and put them aside without showing any of them to his best friend. Of course Josh had noticed, but he knew Tyler would show him if he was ready to do so. Right now he knew that his best friend had too much on his mind, so he simply didn’t dare to ask about it. 

There was a growing fear inside Tyler. He had been at the very bottom before he’d met Jenna and Josh, and now one of his saviours was gone. He was scared that everything he’d been through would start to repeat now, that he would fall again. How was he supposed to continue from now on? There was no chance that he would go back to his old flat, not to the place where everything around him would remind him of Jenna…

He put the paper sheets aside and turned around to Josh. Tylers ribs were broken and moving was still hurting terribly, but he wanted to look at his friend. He hadn’t really talked much during the last days, but right now he felt the need to start a conversation. 

“Josh?”, he calmly asked and waited until he looked up, before Tyler lowered his head a little and reached out an arm for his friend, waiting until he sat down besides him on the bed. He slowly wrapped his arms around him and Josh returned the hug really gently because he didn’t want to hurt Tyler.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Can I live with you as soon as I’m out of the hospital? I can’t go back home. I just can’t. Not without her.”, he explained, leaving Josh speechless for a few seconds. He hadn’t really thought about that until now. The only reality for him had been this hospital, but now he slowly began to realize that there would be a life after they got out of here again. 

“Sure thing, man.”, he finally replied, slowly letting go of Tyler to look at his face. Josh just hated to see him like this. There was almost no life left in his eyes, his face seemed so pale and even a person who didn’t know him could see that he hadn’t really slept much during the last few days.

Since they were just inside this room all day long, even Josh started to slowly lose track of time, but it was already dark outside and there was hardly any noise out there. He had played a silly game on his phone most of the day, without paying attention to the clock, but now that he did he was almost shocked that it was almost 2 a.m. already. 

“You should rest, man…”, he then said, but Tyler just looked away. He was so exhausted and he just wished for some sleep, but as soon as he closed his eyes, those nightmares came back. He would see Jenna again, he would imagine her dying in front of his eyes, no… He’d rather stay awake.

“I’m not tired.”, he lied, pushing Josh away from him, turning around to his papers again, but he grabbed his hand and pressed it firmly.

“Stop it, Tyler. You’re my best friend, do you really think you can lie to me? You can hardly keep your eyes open. Please, you need to sleep.”, Josh begged and gently pushed Tyler down, lowering the bedhead so he wasn’t able to get back up again.

“Josh… Come on…”, Tyler protested, but instead of lying down on the small spare bed, Josh laid down beside him.

“The nurses will be angry when they see you up here…”

“The nurses can eat my entire ass.”

For the first time since he woke up at this terrible hospital, Tyler giggled at his best friend’s words, which made Josh smile immediately. He had been so convinced that he wouldn’t hear his laugh in a long time that it felt like heaven to actually be able to hear it right now. But Tyler still needed to rest. 

“Sleep now. I’m right here.”

“Josh I told you, I can’t…”, Tyler snuggled up to his best friend and pressed his hand a little firmer. He was so scared, but so exhausted at the same time. It felt like his anxiety was coming back to pull the rug out from under his feet and throwing him back into this dark pit again. He was holding on for now, but he couldn’t tell how much longer he was able to. 

Josh couldn’t exactly feel what was going on inside him, but he felt Tyler’s high pulse in his hands, saw the beads of sweat gathering on his forehead, even though the room wasn’t pretty chilled, and also noticed his irregular breathing. Those things can’t be hidden under a smile.

“You’re anxious, am I right? Are you having nightmares?”, he reluctantly asked, hoping his friend wouldn’t shut him out entirely, but to his surprise, Tyler didn’t even try to deny it this time. Tears were gathering in his eyes until there wasn’t enough room to keep them in, so they started running down his cheeks, until they fell and dried on the pillow underneath him. 

“It’s getting bad again, Josh… I’m scared. I don’t… I don’t wanna go back there…”, Tyler’s voice was breaking and he started to cry and sob, and for the first time Josh felt simply helpless. He couldn’t tell how much of this came from pure exhaustion, but right now he needed to do everything to comfort him. 

“Listen, man… I won’t let you fall. You won’t end up down there again, okay? It feels overwhelming now, and it will feel like this for some time, but it will get easier with time, okay? Promise. You’ve been through so much, you can handle this. And this time you don’t have to do it all by yourself.”, Josh tried to convince him, but wasn’t sure if his words were really helpful. He gently pulled Tyler closer to him, trying not to hurt his broken ribs, but even if he just did, this was probably still the best thing he could do. Right now, being here was the only thing he could do for him.

“I just hope you’re right…”, Tyler replied and leaned his head against Josh’s shoulder, slowly closing his eyes, even though there were still tears running out of them.

“Just talk to me… Or sing… I’m so exhausted.”, he added, his eyes still closed, but even though he already felt like dying, he was too afraid to fall asleep. 

“What do you want me to sing?”

“I don’t know. Just something.”

In his head, Josh went through all the songs he knew by heart, which were quite a lot, but most of them were their own songs. Tyler probably wouldn’t want to hear his own songs right now, so he had to decide on something else. He could have just grabbed his book and read something to him, but therefor he would have needed to get up again and he really didn’t wanna disturb his friend right now. So he just decided to sing some Green Day stuff, because that was the only thing he could think of right now. He could hear Tyler chuckle silently as he started singing, but he could also feel that he was slowly relaxing as he continued to sing. 

Josh continued singing until his friend finally fell asleep, but after a while he could hear him breathing steadily. He was relieved that he would get some rest now and tried to close his eyes as well, but there was too much on his mind. What Tyler had been through was horrible, and now that Jenna was gone he was afraid that everything would start over again. Grieving was a hard process, but with mental illness it was barely manageable. Josh was grieving as well, he missed Jenna terribly, but he could only imagine how it was for Tyler. Jenna had been one of the best friends Josh had ever had, but she had been the love of Tyler’s life. And now she was just gone. Just like this. 

He caught himself crying as he thought about all those beautiful moments they shared and wondered for a moment why God had taken her from them so early. He had always believed in God and so far he had been good to him. Of course he knew that not everything could be blamed on God, that there was evil in this world as well, but still he couldn’t understand why it had to be Jenna. Until now he had convinced that there was a reason for everything, but in the depths of his thoughts he started to doubt it. If there really was reason rather than chaos, things like this wouldn’t happen. He’d never thought about it before, but now that those depressing thoughts invaded his mind, he started to realize that this world was horrible. There was so much death, so much sadness, so much grief…

Josh tried to hold his tears back, but failed miserably. He even hardly managed to hold his sobbing back so he won’t wake Tyler up, but the tears just kept running. Should he pray? Was there any sense in praying right now? He looked over to Tyler who snuggled up to him a little closer, seeming almost relaxed for the first time in days and Josh sighed. He decided to pray for Tyler instead.

_ God, if you’re listening… I’m trying hard to stay positive and some guidance would be nice, but Tyler needs you more right now. Please don’t let him go astray. Give him the strength he needs to stand through this. And keep Jenna safe with you. Tell her that we miss her. And please tell her that I’ll take care of Tyler. If you have an angel to spare for us, I would be truly thankful. Please send us some light to get through those dark times. Amen. _

The crying still hadn’t stopped as he finished his prayer, but he somehow he felt a little bit better. He looked over to Tyler again, but the tears in his eyes made it hard for him to see his friend’s face. Maybe he should try to seep as well? He felt so terribly tired by now.

Josh pulled his friend a little closer and tried to get comfortable besides him, which wasn’t really possible without waking Tyler up, but he just accepted it and closed his eyes. As long as he somehow managed to sleep a few hours, it would be alright. 

 

***

 

Josh felt horrible as he woke up the next morning. His back hurt and he couldn’t feel his arm because Tyler had slept with his head on Josh’s shoulder the entire night, but he didn’t really mind. His friend woke up at almost the same moment as he did, and they just tiredly stared into each other's eyes for a moment, before Josh started talking.

“How did you sleep?”, he wanted to know, although he could already see that his friend looked a lot more rested than the day before. 

“Better. But I’m in pain, to be honest… Could you get the nurse to bring me some painkillers please? And some water?”, Tyler asked his friend, unsure if he should ask how Josh slept. The pink haired looked tired and pretty uncomfortable and Tyler felt guilty.

“I’m sorry… I kept you awake.”, he added as his friend slowly got up, but Josh just shook his head.

“First of all, it is not your fault, and second, you’re my best friend. I’m just glad you finally got some decent sleep. Also I never say no to cuddles, mhm?”, he said, the last sentence with a teasing undertone, but Tyler got it. They’ve always been really close since they first met and both of them actually loved cuddling. Jenna never minded that they were that close, she had appreciated their friendship. She didn’t even mind that they’ve kissed sometimes. 

Josh could still remember their very first time. They had played ‘truth or dare’, and his ex girlfriend Debbie had dared him to kiss Tyler. It had been awkward at the beginning, because none of them had been really prepared to do this, but after the first few seconds it had been okay, then it had actually started to feel pretty good. They had almost kissed each other awkwardly long, but Tyler had pulled back before their girlfriends got too confused. 

They’d never talked about this moment again, but it was clear that they’d both enjoyed it, especially when Tyler had felt lonely while they were on tour. Josh remembered that moment as he looked down on the bed where his worn out best friend was lying and decided to walk back to him once more. As if Tyler expected him to, he looked up to Josh and already closed his eyes as he bent down to him. When he felt Josh’s lips on his own, a warm frisson ran through his body. It was so good to know that he wasn’t alone. 

There were a hundred thoughts in Tyler’s head right now. Most of them were about Jenna, what she did, where she was, what she’d say, the memories they shared. One of them wondered if God would judge him for enjoying this, while another told him that he surely wouldn’t. But the loudest was about Josh. He wanted to thank him for being here, but there were no words to describe what he felt for his best friend. 

It was a simple kiss between them, just their lips pressed together, but it was definitely what Tyler needed right now. 

As Josh let go after a while, they both opened their eyes again and the pink-haired gently smiled at his best friend.

“We’ll manage.”, he simply said, stepped away from the bed again and left the room to find a nurse.

It didn’t take two seconds after Josh had left before all his intrusive thoughts came back to him. Jenna was gone, so why should he continue living? Josh would leave him eventually, he was sure of that. He wasn’t even worth his attention. He was responsible for Jenna’s death. She was dead because he didn’t pay attention.

_ You know this is not true, Tyler. You know this is just Blurryface talking again. _

But what if it was true? What if he killed Jenna? His memory was fuzzy and far away. Maybe it hadn’t been the truck driver who fucked up, maybe it had been him?

_ Josh had told you. It had been the truck driver. He fell asleep. It was not your fault. Jenna’s death is not your fault. _

“Yeah? Is that what you think, Tyler? You should kill yourself. You should have killed yourself years ago. You’re worthless. They all just love you because they don’t know you. Jenna would have deserved better. She wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for you.”

_ Shut up. Just shut up. You don’t know shit about me. Josh will be here any second and you will be gone. _

“And what if he doesn’t come back? And even if he comes back, I am conscious now. Who said I’ll go away again? I could take over your body if I wanted to. I did it before, you know that.”

_ No you can’t. You never have. You’re nothing but a figment of my imagination. You’re not really here. You’re just another part of me. Go back to sleep, I don’t need you here right now. You’re disgusting. _

“We are disgusting, Tyler. It’s not only me. You’re not a saint either. Jenna’s death is not my fault alone.”

_ It’s no one’s fault. It was an accident. Accidents happen. You know this as good as I do. She’s with God now. He called her.  _

“God? Are you kidding me? There is no God! Did you ever look at this planet? But if this satisfies you, believe…”

“The nurse said the Doc will be here in a few minutes. They wanna do another X-Ray of your ribs and stuff anyway.”, Josh interrupted him as he walked back in the room, but he immediately saw that Tyler wasn’t okay. He was pale and looked like he had seen a ghost.

“Jesus Christ, what happened?”, Josh wanted to know and sat down besides Tyler, grabbed his hand and gently pressed it. 

Tyler needed a second to find back to reality and to make sure that Blurryface was gone, but he seemed to be dormant again. But still, Tyler was scared. He had never been so violent and present before.

“It’s nothing, I just feel sick. I’m in so much pain. I need those pain killers immediately.”, he lied and just hoped that Josh wouldn’t notice.

“You’re not supposed to sit up yet anyway, what have you been thinking?!”, he wanted to know and carefully pressed Tyler down on the bed again. He was worried that he had hurt himself.

“I don’t know, I moved a little bit and then I was in intense pain. It was reflex, I guess.”, he lied again and tried to look like he was still in pain, but his anxiety seemed to do this job pretty well. Tyler knew he should tell Josh, but he just couldn’t. All this scared him so much that he just wanted to forget what just happened. Blurryface was never entirely gone. He was always in the background, he was his doubt, his fears, his anger, all those negative emotions he tried so hard to suppress. He was scared that Josh would take him to a mental hospital if he told him, also he didn’t want Josh to be scared of him.

A moment later, the doctor came in with a nurse and Tyler finally got his pain killers. They took a while to actually help, but even though he had lied about what happened, he really was in pain. Especially now that it was over, he felt the pain from his broken ribs even more than before. 

The doctors had taken him for an X-Ray half an hour later and Blurry didn’t show up again, probably because the nurses and doctors kept talking about things and Tyler tried to focus on them instead of the things going on in his head, but nevertheless his anxiety gave him a really hard time. 

“It looks good so far, Mr. Joseph. Most of the cracks are as good as gone and it doesn’t look like there’s any deformation, no need to cut you open again.”, the doctor joked, but Tyler just smiled weakly. 

“So, am I good to go home?”, he asked, even though he wasn’t really sure if he would ever be able to actually go home again. If he moved back into their flat, where everything would remind him of Jenna… No, there was no way for him to go back there. He had loved her too much. He still loved her more than anything in this world. All those pictures, all those memories, her scent that would still linger there, the fact that they would never have children like they’ve planned… No, that was just too much for him. 

“We’ll keep you here another day for monitoring, also we scheduled an appointment with the psychiatrist for you at 4 p.m.”, he replied and helped Tyler back in the wheelchair, because he was still really weak, but Tyler refused to sit down yet. Normally that wasn’t like him, but he immediately got angry about it. 

“You can’t just make an appointment without my consent. I want you to cancel that appointment.”, he said harsher than he meant to, before he let the doctor help him back into the wheelchair. His ribs hurt when he was moving, even though he just got some painkillers, but he tried to ignore it for now.

“It’s just a standard procedure after a loss, Mr. Joseph. Dr. Miles is specialized for…”, the Doc tried to explain, but Tyler interrupted him again, his voice obviously showing that he was upset about this.

“I said no. If I wish to see a psychiatrist, I’ll let you know. I don’t need anyone trying to mess up my brain any more than it already is. Would you kindly get me back to my room now.” 

The doctor wasn’t sure what to reply, so he just nodded and did as his patient said. He did have a lot of patients who had negative experiences with psychiatrists, so he just pinned it on that. 

Tyler was glad to be back in his room where Josh was still waiting for him, reading something on his phone. The pink-haired looked up as his best friend entered the room and smiled, more because he had been worried why they’ve been taking so long, but then he saw that Tyler was upset.

He helped the nurse to get Tyler back in the bed, but didn’t say a single word until she had left the room. Even after that he waited a few seconds until he heard her steps getting quieter, but just as he wanted to say something, Tyler interrupted him.

“Let’s bail, I have enough of this shit.”, he said and pulled himself up again, even though he was still in pain. Josh was a little startled and needed a second to react, but as he realized what Tyler was about to do, he gently tried to hold him back. 

“Whoa man, what’s going on? You can’t just leave.”, he tried to persuade him, but he knew this look in Tyler’s eyes.

“They would have discharged me tomorrow anyway. Get our stuff, we’re leaving.”, Tyler said, but Josh wasn’t really convinced yet. There wasn’t much that he wouldn’t do for his best friend, but he wouldn’t just get him out of here without a proper reason. 

“Alright, I’ll get you out of here as soon as you tell me what just happened.”, he told him, still holding Tyler back from getting out of his bed.

“Doctor knows-it-all made an appointment with a psychiatrist without my consent. I told him I would not see them, but I don’t know if he actually cancels the appointment. I don’t wanna stay here forever, so let’s get out of here.”, Tyler explained nervously, but Josh didn’t understand why he got so pissed about that.

“Okay, okay, wait a second. They won’t keep you here. It’s probably just a routine procedure. You just lost your wife, what did you expect? They only want to help you, man… What is going on, you’re acting all strange.”, Josh wanted to know and started to worry. He knew that Tyler had strange ideas sometimes, but he had never been reckless. Instead of just explaining, Tyler got extremely angry again.

“For fuck’s sake, Joshua. Get me the fuck out of here. And stop reminding me! I know what I lost. I feel it in my chest every fucking second since I woke up here!”, Tyler’s voice had gotten deep and his eyes had seldom looked so angry. Josh had actually backed off from his best friend a little because he had never seen him like this before. Also he had never called him ‘Joshua’ before. What did just happen?! 

He could feel tears gathering in his eyes, but he tried to hold them back. Tyler had lost his wife, it was probably normal that he acted strangely after a loss like this. 

“Alright, man… Let me help you.”, he replied and got back besides him to help his best friend getting up, but this time Tyler interrupted him.

“Josh, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t… I’m so sorry…”, Tyler said anxiously and grabbed Josh’s hand tightly. The pink-haired just shook his head and kissed him on the cheek quickly. He was still confused about Tyler’s reaction, but he couldn’t really blame him. 

“Don’t worry. No harm done.”, he calmed his friend, even though it didn’t really seemed to work. 

“I really didn’t mean to swear. I’m sorry, forgive me.”, Tyler begged, but Josh just rolled his eyes. It was probably easiest if he just made a joke about what just happened.

“Dude, come on. Keep the sentimentality for your songs.”, he replied and actually managed to make Tyler smile again.

“Watch it, or I’m gonna kick you out of the band again!”

They both chuckled and Josh finally helped him out of the bed and into the wheelchair again. Tyler was still wearing his hospital clothes, but Josh didn’t take the time to entirely redress him. He grabbed his jeans and helped him put it on, then just put a jacket over the hospital shirt and also helped him put on some shoes without socks underneath. As fast as he could, he grabbed everything that was theirs and threw it into the bag with the fresh clothes that Tyler’s mother had brought them, flicked it over his shoulder and opened the door to make sure that none of the nurses would see them.

“Like gangsters…”, he said as he grabbed Tyler’s wheelchair and pushed him out of the room, and they both tried not to laugh at their obviously bad plan. This was the first time since Jenna’s death that Tyler felt a little bit alive inside. The feeling was barely noticeable, even for himself, but it was enough right now. It was more happiness than he had felt since over two weeks.

“What do we tell them when they see us?”, Josh wanted to know as they’ve reached the elevator, but Tyler just smiled and made an uncertain noise.

“Ehh, just tell them we go for a walk?”

“With your bag and stuff. Sure thing, man. Sure thing.”

As the elevator opened, Josh could feel his heart beating into his chest, but gladly no one was in there. They entered and the pink-haired pressed the button over and over again because he was getting more nervous every second. Right now it didn’t really feel like that much fun anymore.

“Dude, chill, would you?”

“You’re not the one going to jail for kidnapping. Also I stick out like a sore thumb! Have you seen me dude? Pink hair, tats… Also the fact that I’m in a band.”

“You’re in a band? Dude, I never knew!”, Tyler replied sarcastically and Josh just groaned.

“People  _ know  _ us. If we get out of here without a doctor noticing…”

“Then what? They won’t know that I’m not yet discharged. Just chill, okay?”

“Alright…”

For Josh, this felt like the longest elevator ride ever and he could still feel his heart as the doors opened again, but they seemed to have a lucky streak.

“Told you.”

“Shut up, Tyler.”

Josh pushed his friend out of the elevator and towards the exit, almost feeling relief by now, as he felt someone touching his shoulder. There was this urge to run away, but instead he turned around, just to see a girl with a broken arm standing behind him, holding a piece of paper in her healthy hand.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, but… I really, really love you guys and I just saw you getting into the elevator upstairs so I ran down the stairs and I couldn’t believe my eyes, but it is really you, I know it’s rude, but could I please get your autograph?”, she ask with an almost fainting voice and Josh just didn’t manage to say no.

“Uhm, yeah sure. Tyler?”

“Of course.”

She handed them the piece of paper that looked like she just roughly tore it out of a spiral-bound notepad and they both smiled as they tried to get their signatures on it.

“Tyler, what happened to you?”, she wanted to know as they handed her back the paper. Josh bit his lip as he heard the question, unsure if he should answer, but Tyler seemed to have it under control.

“Ah, minor car accident. Few broken ribs, nothing that won’t heal. No need to worry.”, he said and even managed to smile at the girl.

“Oh… this is why you canceled the concerts, I understand. I hope you’ll get better soon.”, she then said, still looking quite worried. The girl surely wasn’t much older than fifteen and Tyler probably felt more sorry for her than she did for him.

“Same goes for you and don’t worry, we’ll catch up on the concerts. Hope we’ll see you there. We’re in kind of a hurry though, so we really have to leave now.”, Tyler said and hoped it would cheer her up, and it seemed to work.

“Yes, of course! And thank you so much!”, she said and waved at them as they left. Josh was relieved that Tyler had managed so well. 

As they finally left through the front door, they both needed a moment to adjust their eyes to the sunlight again. Neither of them had been out there for the past two weeks and it almost felt wrong to breathe in the fresh air. 

“Let’s go before anyone notices that we’re gone.”, Tyler finally said and pointed towards Josh’s car. 


	3. Holding on to You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ!!!!
> 
> This contains a small spoiler, so if you don't want to read this in the beginning, read it after you've read the chapter, but please read it!!
> 
> Okay, so, before you start reading this I want you all to know something:  
> DID is not a mental illness like you usually see mental illnesses. DID means 'being multiple, being more than one person in the same body'.  
> This is not something to be generally afraid of.  
> Blurry might seem evil to you right now, which I chose to do for story purposes, but I still assure you, this is not a reason to be scared about DID.  
> I have a friend(s) who has DID and their alters are all really friendly and kind.  
> So, if you ever meet a person with this condition, please don't freak out and consider the following:  
> \- Don't call them mentally ill and also don't use any slurs  
> \- Don't make fun of them  
> \- Get to know the person and their alters  
> \- Just be nice to them, okay? 
> 
> It's also important to know that DID is entirely different from schizophrenia, so please don't confuse those.  
> If you want to learn more about DID, just google it, although I'll definitely will bring some information in this story as well. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> I hope you all enjoy the next chapter :3

The hospital was almost an hour away from Josh’s apartment. 

He drove very slow and carefully, but he could see that Tyler was hurting anyway. The dark-haired didn’t complain, but he got paler from minute to minute and Josh feared that he would faint before they arrived.

“We’re home in fifteen. Hang in there, okay?”, Josh tried to cheer him up, but Tyler put him off with a wave of his hand.

“No one ever died from a few broken ribs. Don’t go all mother duck on me.”, he replied and tried to smile, but his smile was distorted with pain.

“I’ll stop at the pharmacy and get you some pain killers. I can’t watch you suffer like this. It probably wasn’t the best idea to get you out of the hospital without a prescription for the hard stuff.”, Josh admitted, slightly worried, but Tyler just huffed. 

“Nah, nothing you can’t heal with the standard stuff and a shot of vodka.”,Tyler joked with a hint of severity, but Josh didn’t find this very amusing. 

He immediately started to worry about his friend’s words. Neither of them drank alcohol, they had actually sworn each other not to, for they weren’t exactly overanxious to get filmed and uploaded on an embarrassing YouTube video, doing something they would both regret the next morning. 

Instead of making a big deal out of it, he tried to ignore it and just focus on the street instead, but this was simply not possible for him. Josh had always been the one to overanalyze things, but this time it seemed like it was actually necessary to do so.

“You’re joking, right?”, Josh asked after a few seconds had passed, but Tyler didn’t really care to answer. It’s not like he had forgotten what they had promised each other, but right now he craved for something that would take his mind off things. 

“You could also get me a good shot of bleach instead.”, he replied with a vicious undertone and left Josh speechless. Tyler instantly regretted what he just said, for he knew that his words have hurt Josh and he wanted to apologize, but something inside his mind just wouldn’t let him. How should he apologize for something he was actually willing to do? As he looked over to his friend, he could see that he was upset, he wanted to say something, wanted to make up for it, but he just didn’t know how.

“Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

Silence.

What should he say? Of course he wasn’t okay. Of course he knew that Tyler wasn’t okay either, how could he be? He also understood that Tyler didn’t have much will to continue at the moment, but his words still hurt him so much. If he lost his best friend as well, there wasn’t really anything left for him. Over the last few years, Tyler had become everything to him and he wasn’t ready to let him go yet.

“When they called me to tell me about the accident, I’ve never been more scared in my life. They told me Jenna was gone, and when I reached the hospital and saw you lying there, I thought I would lose you too. I prayed and prayed to god until you finally woke up. I know I shouldn’t be the one complaining right now, but losing Jenna was terrible for me as well, she was one of my best friends and I loved her like my own sister. If you were gone too, I…”, Josh couldn’t finish this sentence. He didn’t want to imagine what would happen if Tyler left him as well. He had always been his soulmate, the one person who understood him, who was able to make him laugh, who calmed him when he was anxious… 

“If I lost you, I’d lose myself.”, he finished, so silently that he could hardly hear himself talking anymore. 

Tyler wasn’t sure what to answer. He started to realize that he wasn’t the only one in this car who was grieving, started to realize how selfish his words had been. The last thing he wanted to do was to cause Josh any more suffering, but without really noticing, he had already done so. 

“Josh… I didn’t mean to… It’s just… I’m desperate. If it hadn’t been for you I would have killed myself on the first day. I just… I can’t imagine a life without her. We wanted to grow old together, have a kid or two, get a dog or something, but now none of this will ever happen. I know I can’t really show you, but you’re the only thing I’m holding on to right now”, Tyler tried to explain and hoped that his friend could forgive him. A few seconds later he could feel Josh’s hand on his own and he squeezed it tightly.

“I understand you. And I’m really sorry, I shouldn't have given you a hard time for this. I guess everyone would think this way… But I promise, I’ll help you out of there, okay?”, Josh replied and let go of Tyler’s hand so he could gear down and park the car in front of the pharmacy. 

“Stop it, you’re not selfish. Your feelings are as valid as mine, and I am sorry for hurting you.”, Tyler really meant it this time. He was sorry and he swore himself to put it together from now on. At least he would try to leave out the sassy comments about drinking bleach. 

“It’s okay, fren. You’re gonna be fine. Can I leave you alone for a second to get you some pain killers?”, the pink-haired asked a little bit insecurely, but Tyler nodded.

“I’ll wait here. And try to get the good stuff. Bribe the pharmacist if you must, but it feels like my chest is on fire.”, he replied, tiredly smiling at his best friend. 

Josh nodded and returned the smile, raised his hand to gently ruffle through Tyler’s hair before he turned away and opened the car door.

“Won’t be long.”, he added and closed the door behind him. 

Tyler watched him until he entered the pharmacy and suddenly started to feel anxious again. As soon as Josh was gone, everything seemed dangerous and unpredictable to him. Maybe it was because of the incident with Blurry, or maybe it was just the fear of being alone. Wherever this feeling came from, it was simply not pleasant. 

“Maybe he’ll come back this time, but eventually he’ll leave us, just continue hurting his feelings and it’ll be sooner than later.”

Tyler turned over to the driver’s seat and almost got a heart attack as he saw himself - no, this was not him, this was Blurry - sitting right next to him. Those red eyes were staring at him with contempt, while his lips were showing their sweetest smile. 

“You’re not supposed to be outside my head. You’re not supposed to be here at all.”, Tyler told him, but Blurry just laughed at his words.

“Baby, you know I’m not here. You’re hallucinating. Imagining things… But hey, as long as I’m inside your head, I am very real to you.” Blurry’s voice was a lot deeper than Tyler’s, but he had always imagined his voice like this. He knew that voice too well. What was he supposed to do now? Should he just ignore him and hoping for him to go away? Even if he wanted to, he could not just sit there, doing nothing. 

“Why are you here? Why can I suddenly see you?”, he asked him, but Blurry groaned as if he was a child that wanted to know why the sky was blue.

“This is not how it works. You know this. I am the other person living in your head. You just imagine me sitting here, talking to you, while this conversation is entirely in your head. I am awake when you are weak. When you’re anxious. We’ve been through this before. I am here when you’re unable to be.”, Blurry explained. Tyler was silent for a moment before a realization crept in on him: 

“Does this mean I’ve reached a new low?”

“Baby, you’ve reached the lowest low. All this time you’ve been able to suppress me, I can’t be here when you’re happy, I can’t come out when you’re all strong, fronting like a big boss, acting like this body was just yours, but you know as good as I am that you’re not the only one living in here.”

Blurry was laughing again and Tyler wished for Josh to come back so he would finally be gone again. He had always doubted that Blurry was a real person, always thought that he was just a part of himself, the negative, depressed and anxious part, but now he started to see him more clearly. He was not anxious, he was not depressed. All this had just been Tyler, but Blurry… He was an entirely different person.

“Are you dangerous?”, Tyler wanted to know, but Blurry just raised an eyebrow.

“Dangerous is such a hard word… I mean no harm as long as we’re co-conscious, but I could be, who knows? I have never been that conscious before. I just know the facts. I just know what you share with me. You still have control over your…”

“Here you go, I told her what happened and she said those will probably knock you out, but you won’t be in pain. Just kidding, she only said you might feel dizzy.”

Josh was back in the car and handed Tyler a small orange pill bottle with painkillers in it. He looked at them with a startled expression on his face until he realized he should probably say something. Blurry was gone and Josh had taken his place on the driver’s seat. Wonderful, beautiful Josh…

“Thanks. You always save me.”, he admitted, more because he just dispelled Blurry, but also because the pain started to become overwhelming. Tyler was still anxious, but he tried not to show it too much. Blurry won’t show up as long as Josh was with him, that much he understood. At least it was like this for now. 

He opened the bottle and swallowed one of those pills without water and leaned back in the car seat. This was getting really unpleasant. He needed to find out what was going on inside his head before Blurry managed to break through completely.

Josh had watched him the entire time and wasn’t really sure what to think of this situation. Tyler was acting weird, also he could clearly see that had gotten anxious again. This also happened the first time in the hospital when he had left to get a nurse. No, something was really off and now he could see it. 

“You lied to me, didn’t you?”, Josh asked after a few more seconds, and since Tyler didn’t lift his head, he already knew that he was right. This was hard. There had only been a few times he had lied to Josh, but back then it had only been when he wanted to surprise him with something, but this…

“Would it make any sense to deny it now?”, Tyler wanted to, but Josh just huffed. He couldn’t believe that there was something going on that gave him the feeling that he needed to lie about it, but he couldn’t really be angry at him.

“Just tell me what’s wrong, okay? I’m worried, Tyler. This is not just pain and your usual anxiety, I know you well enough to see through this.”, Josh explained, still unsure if this would be enough to make his friend talk about his issues. He always needed some convincing to open up, even towards Josh, but this time it really seemed to be grave.

Tyler was still leaning back in the seat, his eyes closed. The anxiety was almost gone by now and it had made room for the uncertainty how to process this and tell Josh about it. On one side he really wanted to, he know he simply should, but on the other side he was anxious about telling him. What if Josh would be scared of him? What if he would take him back to the hospital or worse? Would he actually do this?

“Tyler?”, he asked again, but the dark-haired was still unable to make a decision.

“I… I don’t even know. I just get anxious as soon as I’m alone. I feel so guilty. It’s just… I can’t really explain, I’m sorry.”, he started, but he knew that this wouldn’t really convince Josh. Tyler hid his face in in his hands and hoped this discussion would end soon. This was too much for him.

“Okay, okay. How about we go home now, order something to eat and you tell me everything without ruffle or excitement, mhm? Come on now, it’ll be okay.”, Josh tried to persuade him and Tyler slightly nodded, his face still buried in his hands. What was he supposed to do now? Should he find another excuse for what was happening or should he be open about it and tell him? If he kept it a secret any longer, and Blurry managed to break through without Josh knowing about him, he would be entirely helpless. There was no way around it this time. Blurry seemed to grow stronger as Tyler got weaker…

As Josh started the car, Tyler reached out his hand and turned off the dash key before Josh was able to engage a gear. The pink-haired was a little startled about this reaction, but instead of asking what happened he just leaned back in his car seat as well and waited for Tyler to say something. He knew that he needed time to put everything into words.

“Josh, do you know what DID is?”, Tyler eventually asked, put down his hands and crossed his fingers like he was praying. Nervousness came up inside him and filled his entire body until he started shaking. Somehow he managed to remain calm enough to suppress most of his trembling, but it took more energy than he wanted to admit.

“Dissociative… Something… I read about it, but I can’t remember the name. Why do you ask?”, Josh wanted to know, but he could already divine where this was going and what Tyler was about to tell him. In fact, Tyler had been the reason he had been looking up stuff about all kinds of mental illnesses, but since his friend had been getting better until now, he never felt the need to look into it again. Now he started to regret that he didn’t gather more information about it.

“It’s short for ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder’. Did you remember, when I first told you about Blurryface and how I thought that he represents my doubts and my anxiety? Well, I think I was wrong about this.”, Tyler continued and managed to look up into Josh’s eyes. He needed to see his reaction, but his best friend seemed to be perfectly calm so far, which reassured Tyler to continue. 

“Alright, then what is Blurryface to you?”, Josh asked, knowing that he needed to remain calm now, no matter what. If he freaked out, Tyler would probably get extremely anxious and he wanted to avoid this at all cost.

“He’s… not my doubt and anxiety. Those are my own. He’s more of an own person who… who inhabits the same body than I do. We’re not parts of the same person. He’s not me. This is basically what DID means. Being more than one person...”, Tyler finished with a quavering voice, feeling that his eyes were tearing up again. 

Josh reached out to wipe away his tears with a steady hand. This message hadn’t shocked him nearly as much as the dark-haired thought it would.

“How does this not scare you? Because I’m scared to death, Josh.”, he added a little bit high-pitched after Josh had wiped away his tears and grabbed his best friend’s hand with his own shaking ones.

“Why should I be scared? I could never be scared of you. I’m worried, but not scared. Can I be honest with you about this, Tyler?”

“Yes, I beg you to.”, his voice was still high and shaky, but the fact that Josh was still so serene helped him to calm down himself. 

“You know… When we first met, you weren’t in a very good condition, neither was I. But you started to become my priority, so I pulled myself together, because I just knew that you needed me to. I wanted to know what you’ve been through and how I could help you. Sometimes you acted all strange, like you weren’t really yourself, but you never seemed to fully remember. I googled your symptoms and actually read some stuff about DID. I was convinced that you have it and I was planning to talk to you about it, but then you met Jenna and started to get better. I simply forgot about it. I was just happy that you were okay.”, Josh explained and squeezed Tyler’s hand a little bit. 

By now, Tyler’s tears had dried and he looked at Josh as if he just told him that he owned a unicorn. This was absolutely surreal to him. How could he have kept this all to himself?

“Why haven’t you told me?”, he wanted to know, not really sure what else he should say right now. This was getting way too much again and he felt like he needed to laugh and cry at the same time. Of course he was glad that Josh didn’t freak out about it, but on the other hand he just couldn’t believe that he had kept this a secret all this time. 

“I thought I was wrong about this. You were getting better and all… I’m sorry.”, Josh replied and looked pretty guilty, but this was not what Tyler wanted to achieve.

“No, no, it’s okay. I didn’t mean… I just wondered, you know? Because I always thought we would tell each other everything. But I guess we’re even now, aren’t we?”, Tyler responded and smiled a little unconfident. Josh did the same and looked down on their hands, which were still holding on to each other. Tyler meant so much to him, probably more than every other person on this planet.

“I’ll never keep anything from you again. And I won’t abandon you just because you show signs of your mental illnesses. I’ll be right here and we stand through this together. I’m really glad you opened up to me.”

Josh looked up and their eyes met once again, but this time there were no more words needed. There was so much thankfulness in Tyler’s eyes that it almost made Josh cry, because this clearly showed him how many people must have abandoned him before because of this.

Josh wanted to say something, wanted to tell his friend how much he loved him, how important he was to him, and there was once again this feeling spreading inside him, this urge to be close to Tyler… 

“How about we go home now, I order us some pizza and we watch something on Netflix to get your mind of things?”, he said instead, leaning forward and kissed Tyler’s forehead. It was Tyler who pulled him closer this time and kissed his lips once again, just a short, really passionate and intense kiss, before he let go and leaned back in his seat again.

Josh blinked a few times, confused about what just happened, but decided to just let it be. He could feel himself blushing a little bit as he started the car to finally bring them home. This had in fact been strange, because he had never seen Tyler acting on impulse like this, but at the same time he had enjoyed this short moment. 

They both weren’t talking on the rest of their way home. Josh just focused on the road, while Tyler looked out of the window and thought about all kinds of things, not least about Blurry, who seemed to be dormant right now. If he ever fronted, would he be nice to Josh? Was he dangerous after all? He didn’t seem to be too friendly. At least he had told Tyler to kill them both. Did Josh ever talk to him before? As far as he could tell, Blurry existed for a quite long time now. Maybe he had his own mental illnesses… Gosh, this was complicated. Was that even possible? Could an alter have their own illnesses? Was he lonely, living in the back of his mind? Or was it possible that he was just possessed by a demon? Tyler never believed in possession, but now he started to consider it as well. 

He looked over to Josh again, who seemed to be overly focused on driving his car right now.

“Are you alright?”, Tyler wanted to make sure after he had just silently stared at him for a few minutes.

“Yeah, sure. I’ve just been thinking.”, Josh admitted but smiled at his best friend, just when they finally reached home. 

“About what?”, the dark-haired asked, feeling a certain anxiousness crawling up inside him again. Was he scared of him after all? Would he tell him to leave now? No, he surely wouldn’t do this, or would he?

Josh turned off the engine and smiled at Tyler, so he knew it was nothing to be scared about. Most of the time one could easily see when he started to get anxious, at least the pink-haired could.

“Nothing special. You just never kissed me like this before. Okay, to be honest, no one did ever kiss me like this before.”, Josh confessed and saw how Tyler was immediately blushing, which made him grin.

“I… I’m sorry, I just… I didn’t… It was because… I just wanted to thank you because… I…”, he stuttered and Josh started to laugh because this was simply cute. 

“Chill, it’s alright. I actually really enjoyed it.”

Tyler was still blushing and kinda wished for the ground to open and swallow him up as Josh left the car and walked over to the other side to help him out. Josh didn’t want to make his friend uncomfortable, but he also didn’t want to lie to him about it. 

“I was really just… Did you steal the hospital wheelchair?!”, Tyler snapped and instantly forgot about their embarrassing discussion.

“We needed one? You’re surely not going to walk on your own the next two weeks and I won’t sit around in the flat all day long. Luckily I live on the ground-floor though…”, he explained, but Tyler didn’t seem to be able to cope with that.

“But… You can’t just steal from a hospital, Josh. This is unethical!”

“Your insurance surely covers that. If not, I’ll just pay for it. It’s not like we’re poor or something.”

Tyler thought about it for a moment, but after all, Josh was right. And why did he care anyway? The entire medical system was crap anyway, so they could at least keep the wheelchair.


	4. Shaking hands with the dark parts of my thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long, this week was stressful...  
> Hope you all enjoy reading! :D
> 
> And thanks to my wonderful beta for putting up with all my spelling errors xD

The first thing they both noticed as they entered the flat, was an overwhelming smell of rotten food.

After Josh had gotten the call, he had set out for the hospital without hesitation, so his birthday cake and all the food he had prepared was still on the table where he had left it; but by now it looked like a disaster and also smelled like one.

“Maybe we should rent a hotel room instead?”, Tyler suggested and sniffed at the smell. He already started to feel sick.

“I actually forgot about… Well, just wait in the bedroom while I clean this mess up and spray the entire room with sanitizer.”, the pink-haired replied and pushed Tyler in his wheelchair over to the bedroom, that had luckily been spared by this nauseous smell. Nevertheless he opened a window before he helped Tyler out of his shoes and jacket, then smiled at the fact that his friend was still wearing the hospital gown.

“Guess we stole more than the wheelchair.”, he quipped and lifted Tyler onto the bed, handed him the remote and put a blanket over him.

Tyler had always loved Josh’s flat, especially his bedroom. It was painted entirely red, except for the ceiling, he had a huge flatscreen and all kinds of gaming consoles, even though he didn’t even play that much. The walls were basically covered with posters of his favorite bands and series, also he had a lot of CD’s lying around everywhere. He still had the first drum set he had ever bought standing in the corner next to his bed. From the  way it looked, Tyler could tell that he was still playing on it, even though it probably sounded terrible compared to the ones he could afford by now. But what he liked most about this room was the wardrobe that was covered in pictures of them. Josh still had this old Polaroid-Camera with which he took pictures of them and never threw a single one away, no matter how bad those pictures turned out to be.

“I really missed your teen-girl room.”, Tyler teased his friend and tried to pull up the blanket a little, but it was still not possible for him to move his arms properly.

“I know you love it. I can see the sparkle in your eyes every time you look around. Do you wanna keep on that hospital thingy or shall I give you one of my shirts?”, Josh asked his friend as he already walked over to the wardrobe because he actually knew the answer.

“Nah, I keep this one on, whatever this is. I mean my back’s not getting cold at all without cloth covering it.”, Tyler sassed and the pink-haired just rolled his eyes and threw over his ‘I want to believe’-shirt, just to mock his friend a little more.

“Stop the sass, it’s been enough for a week now. I guess you need my help putting it on?”

The dark-haired wanted to reply something sassy again, but he swallowed the comment and decided to answer honestly this time.

“Yeah, please. I still can’t lift my arms high enough.”, he admitted and waited for Josh to walk over to help him.

As the pink-haired removed the hospital gown, he grimaced at the view of Tyler’s chest, because it looked still terribly painful. It was mainly bruised in black and blue all over and still looked a little bit swollen.

“And they really said they would have let you out tomorrow?”, Josh followed up on it again, simply because he couldn’t imagine that this was how it’s supposed to look like after two weeks.

“Yeah, they took another X-Ray. The doc said the ribs were okay, just some small cracks left… But I guess I’ll have those bruises for a while.”, Tyler explained and tried to look down to actually see his chest, but he couldn’t move his head far enough. Judged from the way his friend looked at him he could already imagine how bad it was anyway.

Josh sighed and wanted to help Tyler put on the fresh shirt but his friend interrupted him.

“Can I shower first? I feel kinda disgusting. I really wanna get rid of the hospital bacteria and stuff.”, Tyler asked and Josh nodded, leaving the shirt on the bed and pulled the blanket over his friend instead. He didn’t want to put Tyler through the pain of getting dressed twice today, especially not after that hell of a car ride he had already faced.

“Let me just clean up the food before it walks out of here itself, then I’ll help you take a shower.”, Josh replied and handed Tyler the remote again.

“Just watch some crap on Netflix, this won’t take much time. I’ll leave the door ajar, just in case you need me. Are you comfy?”, he added and stroked through Tyler’s short hair again.

“Yeah I’m alright. Go get them, Spooky.”, he replied and closed his eyes for a second longer than usual as Josh caressed him.

“Haven’t heard that in a long time.”, Josh said and smiled before he got up and left to finally clean up the living room. He would have given anything to still live with his mother right now so she could help him with this mess, because this was simply disgusting and he wasn’t really capable of stomaching this, but there was no way around it.

He walked over to the kitchen to get the biggest garbage bag he could find and a pair of disposable gloves before he went back to the living room to start cleaning. Somehow it made him sad to see all this going to waste. He even decorated the room for his birthday, got some amazing food and had just wanted to have a good time with his friends and family, and now this day he had always enjoyed so much was also the day of Jenna’s death.

_She’d probably laugh at me right now if she saw this mess. Man, I miss her…_

There was this empty hole spreading in his chest and needed a moment to pull himself together. He could only imagine how all this made Tyler feel right now and he had a lot of respect for his friend to hold it together like this.

“This is just not fair…”, he whispered and finally started to get rid of the food.

Meanwhile Tyler was silently sitting on the bed, trying to shut out all his thoughts except for one. He wanted to talk to Blurry again, now that he had the chance to. Josh wouldn’t take much longer than ten minutes so it was a decent amount of time to have a conversation with his headmate, but this time he wanted to do it without being anxious. The dark-haired wasn’t sure if this was possible, but he at least wanted to try. There was still a lot he needed to know…

“Blurry, can you hear me?”, he thought as loud as possible, but there was no response. How was this working? What did he have to do to talk to him? He couldn’t really imagine that anxiety was the only way to do it…

_It’s called Dissociative Identity Disorder for a reason. Maybe I just have to stop ‘fronting like a boss’, as Blurry had put it and try to dissociate a bit? How am I supposed to do this though?_

Tyler closed his eyes and tried to get as calm as possible, but there was no use. As soon as tried to lose his focus, there were pictures of Jenna popping up in his mind, her smile that had made him so incredibly happy, the moment when she had deeply looked into his eyes, like she was seeing his soul behind them and gently whispered _‘I do’_...

Even though those memories made him sad, he found a certain quiescence in them as well, somehow making him as calm as he wanted to be. They cloaked him in darkness, filling his mind with a dozen different emotions and numbness at the same time…

As he opened his eyes again, he saw Blurry sitting on the bed in front of him, snapping a rubber band against his wrist like Tyler had done it so many times before. It brought something back to him, this feeling of being in need to self-harm; and he didn’t like it at all.

“Why are you doing this?”, he asked Blurry, but once again, his headmate just rolled his eyes. _When will he finally learn?_

“We’re sharing a body and I guess this is your urge, isn’t it? I just adapted it from you. As I told you before, this is happening entirely in your head.”, Blurry explained and Tyler slowly nodded. He still wasn’t really fond of talking to the red-eyed, but there were so things he desperately needed to know.

“Are you willing to answer some questions?”, he dryly asked, trying to ignore those creepy looking eyes that were staring at him like a predator looking at his prey.

“Sure, go ahead. I won’t go anywhere as long as your baby-boy won’t interfere with us again.” There was this smile on Blurry’s face again, a smile that was so strange that Tyler couldn’t really tell if it was meant to be friendly or to scare, but that wasn’t too important right now.

“I asked you before and I’ll ask it again, are you dangerous?”

This was the one important question that Tyler needed to have answered. If Blurry was dangerous, if he was willing to harm anyone, then he needed to find a way to keep him hidden in the back of his head forever.

Blurry sighed at this question and lay down on the bed, staring at the empty ceiling. Tyler slowly realized that he wasn’t really in Josh’s room anymore, but inside his memory of the exact same room. It looked almost the same, but the pictures were gone, the posters were hazy and the CD’s on the floor were all turned around and black because he simply couldn’t remember what the covers looked like. Those were obviously the things that his brain had decided to filter, for they weren’t important enough to keep in mind…

“I’m not more dangerous than you are. At least I don’t plan to be. Who knows, I hardly know myself. But if you wanted to know if I’d harm your little unicorn out there, I surely won’t.”, he explained and Tyler felt a lot calmer just knowing that he wasn’t planning to be a threat to Josh, although he was not entirely sure if he could trust him or not. Just because he lived in the same body, didn’t mean he could tell if he was lying at him.

“What do you mean, you hardly know yourself? You had a plenty of time to think about it, didn’t you?”, Tyler wanted to know and almost shrieked as Blurry suddenly turned his head towards him, his eyes sparkling with anger. He had obviously struck a nerve here…

“This is what you think? The only times I’ve been conscious enough to remember them were the times you’ve felt miserable and wanted to kill yourself. You have never shared a positive feeling with me. Never. Do you know what this does to a person? Not being able to have your own feelings because your… your _host_ is an anxious, depressed and suicidal brat who gives you nothing but misery?! Most of the times I wished you would just kill us both!”, Blurry screamed and Tyler could suddenly feel anger inside him. Was this what he meant? Those feelings that were intense enough that they could both feel them? But since when was he able to feel what Blurry did?

Nevertheless, he felt this anger as well and he wanted to let it out on his headmate, even though he knew this wasn’t helping any of them.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t even know about your existence. And why the hell did you say all those things to me then? Why weren’t you trying to help me instead, maybe it would have had another effect than telling me to kill myself and blame me for my wife’s death!”, Tyler screamed back and felt his anger mixed with sadness, but he could tell that at least the sadness was really his own this time.

Blurry was just looking at him for a moment, as if he was brooding over something, before he finally replied something.

“You won’t like the answer, but I thought I’d finally get you to end it. You’re not the only one who wants to die, Tyler. And since you’re the one controlling the body, all I can do is manipulate you. Well, until now. Not sure what happens if I’m able to get out.”, Blurry threatened him, showing off this creepy smile again.

“Does this mean you’re going to kill us if you get out?”, Tyler wanted to know, feeling his fear coming back again. Of course he was thinking about it himself, he wanted to see Jenna again, wanted to meet her in heaven, but on the other hand he couldn’t just leave Josh behind. He had made a promise.

“Baby, it’s not like you want to stay here anyway, so why do you even bother? At least I have the guts to finally end it. You’re just a coward.”, Blurry replied, this time without a smile or any visible emotions on his face. He was dead serious about this and Tyler didn’t like it.

“No, you’re the coward here. And you’d be a murderer. I’m sorry I put you through this, you have every right to be angry at me and you’re also right about me not wanting to stay… I miss Jenna… I miss her so terribly. But I can’t leave Josh. He’s grieving too and he wouldn’t survive another loss.”, Tyler explained calmly and just hoped that Blurry would understand. His friend was way too important to him and he was already hurting enough.

“Well, I don’t even know him, so why should I care? You don’t care about my feelings either.”, the red-eyed complained and turned away from Tyler, facing the ceiling again. Somehow Blurry wanted to hate Tyler, but on the same side he was not able to. All he wanted was this suffering to end, no matter at what cost. He didn’t care about Josh or Jenna or Tyler’s family at all.

“I’m lonely.”, he silently added, sounding like a human being for the first time. His words made Tyler sad. Somehow he could understand his headmate; and even though he was still scared of him, he was now able to understand him a little bit better.

“Is there a way I could let you be co-conscious when we’re not alone? I could show you that not everything is bad… Even though it might take a while until I’m able to honestly say that.”, Tyler tried to convince him, but Blurry didn’t really seem to be impressed.

“What I know about this world so far is, that there’s war, illnesses, murder, death, basically everyone’s depressed and no one knows what they’re still alive for. They’re just all telling each other that suicide isn’t the answer. You just lost your wife because of a truck driver who was obviously so overworked that he fell asleep at his job. So what are the good things you want to show me?”, Blurry honestly wanted to know, because he couldn’t really believe that there was much that it was worth to stay alive for. The fact that Tyler needed a long time to think about an answer only reassured him of his opinion.

“Well… There’s still some beauty in this world. There’s love, there’s friendship… There are a lot of wonderful places that would be worth visiting…”, he started, but right now he couldn’t really take himself serious. All this sounded so made up, like a child that tried to convince their parents that nap time was unnecessary while already being dead tired.

“To be honest, at the moment it’s only Josh for me. Without him I’d say go for it and kill us both. But I can’t do this to him, so I beg you not to do it. I promised.”, Tyler explained, hoping that Blurry would see how important Josh was to him, but his headmate just sighed as he looked back to him. Something in his eyes was different than before. They now seemed so much less scary, but therefor there was a sadness in them that would hurt the strongest.

“Tell me about him. What makes him so special that _I_ need to stay alive for him.”, he asked and managed to startle Tyler with his question. How was he supposed to explain this to Blurry? Josh was his best friend, he had been the one who managed to drag him out of this dark hole and given him purpose, the one who had showed him that there was a future and that it’s okay to struggle. He had shown him more light during the last few years than he had seen in his entire life and right now he was the one who gave him strength, who actually managed to make him believe that it was going to be okay again. Besides Jenna, Josh had always been the person Tyler had loved the most. Maybe he loved him even as much as he had loved his wife…

“Woa…”, Blurry interrupted Tyler’s thoughts and sat up again. His expression had changed and he now looked at him with confusion in his eyes and an almost shocked face.

“What’s wrong?”, Tyler wanted to know, since he couldn’t understand what just happened.

“What was that?”

“What do you mean?”

Blurry seemed to be entirely confused and Tyler wasn’t sure what he should do now. He wanted to help his headmate, but he simply couldn’t without knowing what he meant.

“Didn’t you feel it? I felt something. Something I hardly felt before…What have you been thinking about? You must have caused some kind of reaction of the body.”, Blurry explained as best as he could, but there were not enough words in his memory to describe what he just felt. He didn’t even knew all the words that Tyler knew, probably not even half of them. It was the same for everything else, especially his emotion range.

“Nothing, I just thought about Josh. You asked me about him, remember?”, Tyler replied, slowly understanding what Blurry must have meant. The feelings he had for Josh were so normal to him that he never really questioned their existence, but since everything the red-eyed seemed to know were Tyler’s dark thoughts, it now occurred to him that this had been an entirely new experience for his headmate.

“Oh… I this is really strange, I felt something similar once. That night the urges came back and your wife walked in and took your knife away? Didn’t get much chance to see her, but I grabbed a part of this feeling as well.”, Blurry explained and Tyler slowly nodded. Of course he remembered this night. Jenna had talked to him for hours and even asked if he wanted his rubber band back. It had just been one night, one really bad night, but she had stayed awake until the next morning just to support him. Once again he realized how much he missed her…

“Yeah, it is called love.”, Tyler told his headmate who still wasn’t quite able to grasp the fact that there was a lot more than those few negative feelings he knew.

“Baby, this is a special kind of drug.”

They both looked at each other for a moment and then Tyler started to smile.

“Do you understand now?”

“A bit, but I’m now wondering… Why did you marry Jenna and not Josh?”, Blurry asked him and Tyler could actually feel their body blushing. What kind of question was this? And why was this making him so uncomfortable?

“Uhm…”

“Is this not a socially acceptable question or did I just strike a nerve?”

“Could you stop analyzing my emotions please? This is nothing you need to care about.”, Tyler replied with a pissed undertone and Blurry raised both hands to signalize that it hadn’t been his intention to piss him off.

“I’m sorry crybaby. Not my fault if you’re so overemotional. So, care to answer my question or nah? Why did you marry the one you love less?”

It almost seemed like Blurry wanted to provoke Tyler with his question, but nevertheless he tried to remain calm, even though he really felt the need to scream at his headmate right now.

“You’ve seen her once. You don’t even know how I feel for her. Also you just learned what love is, this doesn’t make you an expert on feelings. Why do you even care? It’s not like you’ve been married to her!.” He couldn’t entirely hide his anger about Blurry’s utterance, yet his headmate just wouldn’t shut up about it:

“I might not be an expert, but…”

“Let it go, Blurry. I don’t want to hear it. My wife is dead and it hurts like getting shot in the chest. I miss her terribly, so can you please just let this topic go? Seriously, think whatever you want, but leave me alone with this.”

There was another moment of silence between them and they both felt uncomfortable in this situation. It was weird to fight with the person who lived inside one’s head. None of them could just leave the other, no matter how hard they wanted to.

“Okay. I’m sorry?”, Blurry finally said and Tyler remained silent for the moment. What else should he do? Of course he wasn’t really happy about the things his headmate had said, but he had to forgive him after all, even though the apology was more than just lackadaisical.

“Forget it. It’s better if you went back to sleep now. Josh is probably coming back any minute.”, Tyler explained and Blurry raised an eyebrow, not really satisfied with this answer.

“I thought you wanted to let me be at least co-conscious?”, the red-eyed complained, but Tyler denied it.

“Do you know how? Then tell me. Because I don’t know. Let me read a little bit into everything and I’ll eventually let you out. But only if you behave. We share the same body so you can’t just act up when you feel like it.”, Tyler explained, even though he could already see that his headmate wasn’t really happy about it.

“You and your rules and ugh. No fun allowed, I got it. Have fun with your little lover-boy!”, Blurry replied and just vanished before he could reply anything.

Tyler was back in Josh’s actual bedroom again and he was finally alone. This had been more draining than he wanted to admit and he felt terribly tired by now…

Meanwhile, Josh was almost done with cleaning up the living room, really proud of himself that he had managed without throwing up. He had tried to ignore the fact that he would be miserable on every single birthday from now on, but he hadn’t been able to get rid of the thought entirely.

_This is all my fault. If I wouldn’t have planned a party Jenna would still be alive now._

The rational part of him knew that this wasn’t true, that none of this was his fault, but he still felt guilty for some reason.

As he was done, he just put the garbage bag in front of his door and decided to bring it out later, threw the disposable gloves away with it and decided to leave the windows open a little longer, at least until this horrible smell was gone. It would probably take some time, but he’d rather have a freezing cold flat than one that smelled like something had died in here.

Josh went back to his bedroom where Tyler was still lying on the bed, his eyes only half-way open. His friend looked so tired that Josh almost felt sorry for him.

“Are you alright?”, the pink-haired wanted to know and sat down on the bed besides Tyler who slightly nodded and then yawned. It took him a few moments until he felt awake enough to answer, but his energy was slowly coming back now that Blurry was gone.

“Yeah, sure. Just really exhausted. Guess I’ll fall asleep early today.”, Tyler replied and smiled at Josh, who didn’t return the smile, but raised an eyebrow instead.  

“Did he come back? Blurry, I mean?”, Josh wanted to know and put his best friend’s reaction under the microscope, just to make sure he wouldn’t try to lie at him again, although this time there was no reason to be sceptical.

“To be honest, I kinda summoned him… I really wanted to talk to him, so…”

Josh blinked a few times and needed a moment to understand what Tyler just told him, for he really hadn’t expected an answer like this. Why would he try this all by himself without telling Josh about his plans? Wasn’t this dangerous? He really wanted to rant about it, but he pulled himself together and spared Tyler.

“Uhm, okay? Tell me about it.”, the pink-haired asked instead, for he didn’t want to reproach Tyler with his recklessness right now. He surely knew what he was doing, even though Josh didn’t quite understand why the dark-haired always had to do everything by himself. If he had told him about it, Josh would have tried to help him.

“It was draining.”, Tyler started to explain, but wasn’t quite sure how he should put his feelings into words. There was so much going on with Blurry that it was hard to figure out which was important to mention and what wasn’t.

“Tell me about him then. What is he like?”, Josh asked, moving one of his legs restlessly from one side to the other. Normally he was pretty calm, but right now he felt worry and a kind of excitement at the same time. All this was pretty new to him and he really needed to know more about Blurry, not least because he could be a threat to his best friend.

“He’s probably more broken than me. The only time he was conscious was when I felt depressed and suicidal and those were the only feelings he ever knew. Therefor he more or less tried to kill us both. It was him who had always told me to kill myself, mostly because he doesn’t really have a will to live either. Also he has no clue how to handle sensitive topics…”, Tyler told his friend, still a little bit upset about what Blurry had asked him before, but it was probably best if he kept this part of the conversation to himself. The dark-haired had always been so certain about everything, especially about his feelings, but now that the person who lived in his own head had started to doubt them, he was a little unsettled.

“Wow. That doesn’t sound too comforting.”, Josh replied and grimaced a little, unsure what else he should say. What Tyler just told him made him feel bad for Blurry, but on the other hand he wasn’t really too fond of him either. It seemed like he was still willing to harm Tyler and himself, and that was the last thing that Josh wanted to happen.

“Yeah, no. But I convinced him not to… Well, not to harm us if he comes out. Also I kinda promised him to find out how to let him be co-conscious when I’m awake sometimes. So he learns about stuff, sees some things, you know?”, he continued, slowly realizing how weird this all sounded. Josh didn’t really seem to happy about this plan either.

“Do you really think this is a good idea? What if something happens, what if he, I don’t know… breaks through and does something harmful?”, Josh expressed his concerns, but Tyler sighed in frustration.

“He’s still a person, Josh. I don’t like this more than you do, after all it is my body we share. But I can’t keep him in the dark all the time. It’s my fault he is like this. I just have to find out how to control this somehow…”

There was a moment of silence between them. Josh thought about everything that could happen, especially about losing Tyler, which scared him most, but on the other hand he knew that his friend was right. What he had read about DID back then taught him exactly the same thing: They were both people. They both had a mind and feelings of their own and it would be cruel to keep one of them in the dark. Of course this felt strange to Josh, knowing that his best friend was more than one person, knowing that Tyler’s headmate could theoretically break through any second, but none of this changed how he felt, he still loved Tyler.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ll support you through this. Both of you.”, Josh calmly replied and leaned forward to hug his friend, who immediately returned the embrace.

Tyler’s skin felt warm under Josh’s hands and he hoped that this wasn’t too unpleasant for the dark-haired that his hands were cold, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Thank you. I know you think that I take your support for granted, but I really don’t and I want you to know that this means a lot to me. I couldn’t bear to lose you because of this.”, Tyler gently whispered against Josh’s neck. The pink-haired shivered a little as he felt Tyler’s lips moving, his warm breath against his skin…

“I love you, Tyler. I won’t ever abandon you.”, Josh promised and gently stroked over his friend’s back. There was this urge inside him again, this urge to be closer to his friend, a lot closer than they were right now, but he tried to ignore it and slowly backed off again. He had known this feeling since quite a while now, it grew stronger inside him every time they were close, every time Tyler told him he loved him, every time he made him a compliment or even just smile at him…

“Thank you, I mean it. I love you too, man.”, the dark-haired replied and showed him his most heart-warming smile again. For Josh, it started to feel different. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but something had changed for him during the last few days. This wasn’t about Blurry and his existence, this was simply about Tyler, but he couldn’t tell what was going on inside him right now. Maybe it was just the fact that they both were grieving that gave him the urge to hold him close and kiss him until neither of them were still able to breathe…

_Why the hell am I thinking this?_

Josh tried to get rid of all those thoughts, after all Tyler was still his best friend and he shouldn’t picture them in a situation like this.

“Maybe we should go to sleep. I guess it was a stressful day for both of us…”, Josh said and handed Tyler back the shirt.

“I really need to shower…”

“First thing tomorrow, promise. But I think you’ll just faint if I drag you over to the bathroom now.”

Tyler nodded and tried to raise his arms a bit so Josh could help him with the shirt, but this was already too painful for him. The long car ride wasn’t exactly the best thing that could have happened to him and moving the slightest bit started hurting like if his chest was on fire again.

“Forget it.”, the pink-haired quickly said and threw his shirt back on the pile in front of his wardrobe.

“I’ll close all the windows and turn on the heater, you should be fine like this as well. And I’ll get you some water so you can take another pill.”, he added and left the room again to do as he just said. It was pretty cold by now, but at least this horrible smell was as good as gone.

On his way back, he quickly looked at his phone to check the time - 8:12 p.m. - and realized that he had ignored it the entire day. There were several missed calls from his mother, some from Tyler’s mom as well, a few messages from friends who wanted to know how they were feeling and also one from his ex-girlfriend Debby who had wanted to visit them in the hospital. He decided to message everyone back in the morning, went to the kitchen and got a glass of water for his friend before he headed back to the bedroom.

“We should call our fams tomorrow. I have a dozen missed calls, probably because the hospital called them?”, Josh told his friend as he handed him the glass of water and the pill bottle that Tyler had put on the nightstand.

“You’re probably right. Would just message them quickly so they know we’re okay?”, the dark-haired asked as he swallowed another pill, hoping the pain would fade soon so he was able to sleep.

“Sure thing.”, Josh replied and send both their mothers the same text message:

_‘Hey moms. Tyler is with me, we’re home and safe. Call u both tomorrow. Love u’_

It didn’t take two seconds before both Tyler’s and Josh’s phone started vibrating, but none of them wanted to talk now, especially because they knew they owed their family an explanation for bailing. They simply turned their phones off and Josh plugged in the charger, then left them on the floor.

“They will kill us.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Well, but I would. Let me help you, man.”

Josh turned on the heater in the bedroom, then walked over to the bed and helped his friend to get out of his pants and made sure that he was comfortable, then he got rid of his shirt and pants as well.

“Should we turn on the TV for a bid? I could set the sleep timer if you like?”, he offered Tyler as he lay down besides him, but his friend shook his head.

Josh reached for the light switch above his bed and turned out the lights, trying to get comfortable as well, even though he wasn’t tired at all. He thought about getting up again to fetch his phone and read through all the messages he had missed today, but then Tyler would probably want to do the same. He decided to leave it, so his friend would get some rest.

“Wake me up if something is wrong, okay?”

“Yeah. Can you hold me?”

Tyler had gotten anxious at the second Josh had turned out the lights. Maybe it was just the fear of having nightmares and Blurry coming back to haunt him, even though the thought of talking to his headmate was a lot less scary by now. He was probably more scared of his thoughts about Jenna than about his headmate annoying him in the middle of the night.

“Of course.”, Josh replied and snuggled up to his friend, leaning his head against Tyler’s shoulder. He would have pulled him close and just put his arms around him, but he knew this wasn’t possible yet.

“When your ribs have healed we’ll hug like we used to, okay?”, Josh promised and gently kissed his friend’s shoulder.

“Yeah, please… Sleep well, Spooky.”

“You too, fren.”


	5. Blasphemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> I finally made it!  
> It has taken me some time, but it's done.  
> A big thank you to my wonderful friend and beta-reader Berit, who wrote some parts of this chapter and helped me a lot with this *big hugs*
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING FOR SELF-HARM IN THIS CHAPTER!  
> If you have trouble reading self-harm scenes, feel free to leave me a comment and I'll give you a trigger free chapter summary!
> 
> Have fun reading everyone!!

It was still dark outside.

The moon was the only thing that cast its pale light into the bedroom, but it was not nearly enough to be able to distinguish much more than schemes. Josh could hardly make out the shape of Tyler lying next to him, just the familiar sound of his steady breathing showed him that he was still asleep.

For a moment he thought about just going back to sleep himself, but something inside him urged him to get up and just be active. If he stayed in bed, he would feel muddled all day anyway. The ‘five more minutes’ would probably end up being two more hours, as usual, and he really didn’t want to do this to himself. 

As quietly as possible he got out of bed and walked over to grab his phone, slowly looked back to his friend again who seemed to be still dreaming, not noticing any of his movements. As he walked out of the bedroom, he left the door ajar so he would be able to hear Tyler if he woke up. 

He checked his phone on the way to the couch and silently huffed as he realized that it was only 5 a.m., but at least he would have some time now to finally answer the rest of his messages. 

Besides the seven missed calls from Tyler’s mom and the other three from his own mother, there were a bunch of messages from his friends, all of them asking if they were alright, but somehow he didn’t feel like messaging back any of them. It already seemed too draining to even think about answering. There were also about a thousand twitter notifications from several fans who wondered about the cancelled concerts and wanted to know what was going on, but he would wait for Tyler to write about it. After all, Jenna had been his wife and not Josh’s. He felt pretty sorry about the shows, but what was he supposed to do? None of them had reckoned with something this terrible to happen. 

_ I still should apologize to the fans somehow. They deserve to know, they were looking forward to it… _

He opened Twitter and thought about what to write for a long time, before he just typed a simple apology to everyone:

»We’re incredibly sorry about the concerts. Something terrible happened, but we’ll be back as soon as we can. Stay alive everyone.«

This was his first tweet since over two weeks and it didn’t take more than a few seconds until people started replying to it. As always, he began to read through the first few comments, most of them were really positive, telling them to stay strong, saying they were worried, others replied that there was nothing to apologize for and some just wanted to know what was going on. Right now, he was thankful that their fans were so understanding most of the time.

As he received another notification, he closed twitter and opened his text messages instead, just to see that his ex-girlfriend seemed to be awake as well. Josh knew she was filming some kind of children’s series right now, so she either was already on the set or had been out partying. 

»Hey baby boy, I saw ur tweet, r u awake?«, Debby had texted him and Josh decided to reply to her message immediately. After all that had happened, she was still one of his best friends and surely worried about them, especially after they just bailed out of the hospital without telling anyone. 

»Halfway. We’re at my place. Sry for not texting. U ok?«, Josh replied, hoping that Debby wouldn’t be pissed at him for just replying now, but he didn’t assume that. After their break-up they had still been able to remain friends, even though Josh wasn’t too happy about some things she had done. He always reminded himself not to judge others, but sometimes it was harder than he wanted to admit.

»I’m ok, wbu? How’s Tyler? I’m worried…«, she replied after a few seconds and Josh wasn’t sure what to tell her. Of course they both weren’t okay, especially Tyler, but he was sure that she actually knew this already.

»We’re alive, but I won’t say we’re fine. Tyler stays with me for now. It’s not the same without Jenna.«, Josh replied and sighed quietly. Debby had known Jenna as well and she was probably grieving, too.

»I understand. Do you already have a date for the funeral? I would like to come and say goodbye.«

This message felt like a direct punch, causing a pain that made his heart stumble. So far, none of them had talked or even thought about the funeral. Jenna’s parents had tried to bring up this subject to Tyler a few days after the accident, but he had sent them away because it had been to much for him. Nevertheless it was about time that they started to plan it.

»We haven’t talked about it yet, but I’ll let you know.«

Josh put his phone aside and just stared at the black screen of his TV for a few minutes. There were so many thoughts racing through his head that it was hard to really hold onto one of them. He needed to talk to his friend about this later, but how was he supposed to do this? How could he confront Tyler with the fact that they needed to plan his wife’s funeral, or at least participate in the process? No, he couldn’t just do that. Maybe Jenna’s family had already planned everything? It surely was terrible for them as well, but he couldn’t ask his best friend to do this now.

Instead of continuing to ponder about it, he just texted Jenna’s parents. If they had arranged everything by now, he wouldn’t have to talk to Tyler about it; he would just send them the money to cover the costs, but if not… If not he would still have to manage this somehow. After all, he had known Jenna well enough to be able to make the plans for the funeral as well, at least he could try. 

_ God, please just let the preparations be done. I’m not sure if I’m able to do this.  _

He knew they wouldn’t reply any time soon, but right now he wished they were already awake, and just answered him so he could get that topic off his mind… Somehow he was angry at Debby for reminding him about the funeral, even though he knew there was no reason to be. After all, he should be angry at himself for pushing this to the back of his mind for far too long.

He suddenly started to feel exhausted again. The thoughts about the funeral drained his energy really fast and he just wanted to forget it, wanted all this to be over already.

“Josh? Josh, where are you?”

The pink-haired was actually thankful that Tyler was awake now. That meant he could finally do something besides waiting on the couch to get his mind off things, preparing breakfast, helping him to take a shower and somehow bring up this sensitive topic.

“I’m here, wait a sec.”, he replied, got off the couch, and walked over to the bedroom, just to see that his best friend was crying.

“Hey… Ty, what’s wrong?”, he caringly asked and walked over to his friend, hugging him gently. Tyler wasn’t sobbing or even shivering, he was just sitting there, silently crying, and it broke Josh’s heart.

“You weren’t there when I woke up. I don’t even know… I just… Forget it, it’s childish.”, the dark-haired replied and returned the hug as best as he could with his damaged ribs. As he had woken up and realized that Josh wasn’t lying besides him as he had expected him to, sadness had spread inside his body and he had begun to think about every worst case scenario his brain was able to make up. What if Josh left one day and never came back? What if he abandoned him, telling him he wouldn’t be able to deal with Blurry? What if he died long before Tyler himself died? How was he supposed to continue without him?

All those thoughts overwhelmed him and he couldn’t help but crying. Now that Josh was here, now that he could see him, touch him, feel the warmth of his skin against his own, being able to hear him breathing again, those feelings started to fade. How was this man able to calm him down with nothing but his presence, just by being himself, being this wonderful, kind and amazing person Tyler loved so much? 

_ Because you love him. I told you yesterday. In contrast to yourself, I am more able to feel our body reacting to certain things.  _

“Oh please don’t… Go back to sleep and leave me alone!”

Josh backed off a little and looked at Tyler with a confused look on his face. What did just happen?

“No, no, no! Not you, I…”, the dark-haired began and wasn’t sure how he should put it without scaring his friend. This was the first time that his headmate talked to him when Josh was around and if Tyler was honest with himself, it really scared him. After all, Blurry did manage to be co-conscious while he was feeling okay… If he managed that all of the sudden, what else would he be able to do? 

_ For fucks sake, could you chill?  _

“Are you alright?”, Josh wanted to, trying to remain calm, as he could see that Tyler was getting anxious again. He could already tell that his friend was far from alright, but maybe he could save him the panic attack.

“I… I don’t know? Blurry is awake.”, the dark-haired explained and started shivering, which was probably the worst that could happen with his ribs still broken. If his pain increased, his anxiety would increase as well. He was so close to panicking and his chest felt like it was on fire again, which only intensified the feeling of not being able to breathe. Tyler tried to remain calm, but he already started gasping. 

Josh knew it was too late to prevent the panic attack, but he could at least try to comfort him through it. Even though he had often seen his friend like this and also had panic attacks himself, it just hurt him to see Tyler suffering… 

“Hey, come on now. It’s alright. Breathe. Just breathe. Nothing can harm you, I am here with you.”, he reassured his friend and gently pulled him back into an embrace. The fact that Blurry was awake wasn’t the most pleasant thought for Josh, but on the other hand he had known that this would eventually happen. He just didn’t reckon that would be so soon. 

“Blurry, if you can hear me, I would be really thankful if you could leave us alone for now? I would like to talk to you eventually, but you’re scaring Tyler, so…”, Josh tried to reach out to his friend’s headmate, unsure if this would actually work, but it was the only thing he could think of right now.

_ See, he would like to talk to me. Baby, seriously, why are you so scared of me? I just wanted to look out of the window as well. I’ve been in the dark for far too long. _

Tyler wanted to reply something, but right now he wasn’t really able to talk. Blurry would certainly be able to hear his thoughts as well, but Tyler wasn’t even capable of really holding onto one thought at the moment. Blurry had triggered a panic attack and until Tyler managed to calm down, he was pretty much non-verbal.

_ I see. Not talking right now. Tell your lover-boy that it was nice to have some human interaction before you had to panic again. You really need to get your shit under control. _

Tyler knew that Blurry probably didn’t mean any harm, that he just wanted to see something but darkness as well, but he simply hadn’t been prepared for this. How could he have been? Anyone would have been scared!

“I’m sorry, Blurry.”, Tyler murmured with a shivering voice, but his headmate was already dormant again, probably unable to hear him. Somehow he was curious where Blurry went when he wasn’t active, if he had a sense of time, if he was conscious inside his own mind or if there was just no memory in between? Was this just like sleeping without a dream? The dark-haired knew he would soon experience all of this himself, and it scared him, hence he felt so sorry for his headmate.

“What did he say? Is he gone?”, Josh asked after a few minutes, as soon as he could feel that Tyler was slowly getting calmer. The shaking became less intense and his breathing started to normalize again. The dark-haired slowly sat up and wiped the tears off his face, still shaking a little bit, mainly because he was in terrible pain now. There was cold sweat on his entire skin and he just felt disgusting. 

“He said I should get my shit under control. But he’s gone now, I guess…”, Tyler explained and reached over to the nightstand to take another pill before the pain would become unbearable. 

“Wow, friendly. He should know that anxiety is nothing you can control that easily.”, Josh replied and actually got a little pissed about Blurry’s comment. He suffered from anxiety himself and he knew how hard it was to cope with a panic attack, even if the reason for getting anxious may seem like something everyone else wouldn’t be scared of. Especially for Blurry, who should actually know how Tyler was feeling, that statement was pretty low. 

“It’s alright. He was probably just disappointed? He kinda enjoyed our ‘human interaction’.”, Tyler explained and left Josh startled for a moment, until the pink-haired realized what Tyler meant.

“Ahh… Now I get it. Well, tell me if he’s awake again, I can hug him if he wants me to? Hug you. You both. Whatever.”

There was a moment of awkward silence between them, but then Tyler just started to laugh. It wasn’t out of happiness, he felt just so miserable that he couldn’t do anything but compensate it with a mixture of crying and laughing at the same time. This was too much for him.

“I know what will happen. He’ll eventually break through and you will probably hate him, and then you will start hating me, and then you’ll leave because it gets too much for you putting up with me and him, because they always leave, because everyone leaves me, everyone always leaves me and I’ll be alone again, I don’t want to be alone, Josh, please don’t leave me, please don’t, please…”, Tyler hastened and felt his anxiety coming back to him, yet he couldn’t really stop laughing. It was still so early in the morning and this entire day already felt like shit to him. The thought of Josh talking to Blurry made him cringe and the fear of losing him, losing the one person he was holding onto right now was simply unbearable.

Josh was just sitting there, feeling utterly helpless. Tyler was having a breakdown and he needed to calm him down, he needed to be there for him, but what should he say? Of course he would never leave him, never abandon him, and his friend should know that, for he had told him so many times before, yet he seemed so convinced that Josh would just leave him one day. It killed him every time he realized how broken his friend was. 

Instead of trying to convince him with his words, Josh reached out both his hands and put them around Tyler’s face, gently caressing his cheeks while looking deep into his eyes until he finally stopped this oddly sounding laughter. 

The pink-haired leaned forward to kiss his friend, as gently as always, but this time he could feel Tyler opening his lips, gently licking over Josh’s with his tongue. For a second he was confused about it, but then he realized how much he was enjoying this, just giving in to him and this warm feeling that was spreading through his entire body.

It was probably the longest kiss they’ve ever shared, even though it just felt like seconds to them; and Tyler started to feel guilty and aroused at the same time. He knew he shouldn’t kiss Josh like he had only kissed his wife before, he knew he shouldn’t enjoy it this much, but he just needed this, he just needed to feel Josh close to him, knowing that he wasn’t alone…

_ God, what am I doing here? _ , he asked himself after a few minutes, slowly broke their connection and backed off without making eye contact. He was so used to kissing his friend, but this time had been different, a lot more intense and… 

“Tyler, you know I’d never abandon you. Not ever, I promise.”, Josh broke that short moment of awkward silence and everything was back to normal again. As always, there was this unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t talk about this, at least not anytime soon. It was just easier to accept that certain things happened. There was no need for analyzing this, especially in a close friendship like theirs. Many of those moments they both treasured, but neither of them felt comfortable talking about it. Talking about certain things could both save and ruin a friendship, and by now they have figured out when it was necessary to communicate and when it was best to remain silent. 

Tyler's anxiety was almost gone but had left his body aching to the core and covered in sweat. His longing for a shower grew strong again . The last time his skin had seen some water was almost a week ago in the hospital as the nurse helped him to shower. He was disgusted by himself and the cold anxiety sweat only made it worse. He pushed away the blanket, which now smelled sweaty as well and huffed.

“Josh… Can you help me out of the bed? I really need to shower. And use the bathroom in general.”, Tyler asked his friend and tried to at least sit up on his own, but it was harder than he wanted to admit. 

The pink-haired nodded and gently pulled him up, still supporting him as he was already standing, just in case he would faint, but gladly nothing like this happened.

“Can you walk?”, Josh asked, didn’t dare to let go of him for now, but Tyler nodded.

“Yeah. It’s about time I try this.”, he replied and started to walk towards the bathroom, but Josh still followed him closely, just in case he wouldn’t be able to walk the entire way.

The dark-haired was in fact hurting and he just wanted to sit down again, but something inside him almost forced him to do this now, which was probably the adrenaline that was still left from his panic attack.

As he reached the bathroom, he supported himself against the sink, took a few deep breathes to help him cope with the pain before he raised his head to look at himself in the mirror. It almost felt like seeing a ghost of his former self. His face was pale and he had dark bags under his eyes, his chest was bruised in every imaginable color a skin could take on, he had lost too much weight and overall he just looked exhausted. This was the first time he saw himself since his wife had died, and it shocked him how much he had changed during that time. Something inside him told him to smash the mirror, destroy this poorly replicated image of himself, so he would never have to see himself again, but instead he just turned away and looked to Josh, who had been standing besides him silently.

“Could you get me some clothes and something I could sit on while showering? I can’t stand the entire time.”, he asked his friend and turned to the sink again, grabbing his toothbrush out of the cup standing on the sink. Probably half the stuff in this bathroom belonged to Tyler anyway, because he had simply forgotten to take those things home again or purposely left them at Josh’s place every time he had been here, until there was no need to bring anything for his visits. 

“Sure. Now I regret I didn’t take the other place that had a bathtub…”, Josh told him and smiled at his friend, but Tyler didn’t return the smile. The pink-haired knew that it obviously had been a shock for him to see himself like this, but there was nothing he could do about it right now. He would definitely order something to eat later, especially because Tyler needed to regain some strength, but healing would take time.

After Josh had left the room, Tyler dared to look up into the mirror again. The toothpaste around his mouth only made him look sicker and he almost found it amusing how much he looked like a zombie with rabies. 

_ Smash the fucking mirror and cut your wrists with the shards. Come on, you want to do it. Let’s finish this waste of a life.  _

For a second he thought that Blurry was back, but this wasn’t his headmates voice.

_ Finish this waste of a life.  _

He just closed his eyes. Yes, those words were his very own words in his very own voice. He wanted to do it, he wanted to end it. Just leave and end up straight in hell where he deserved to be.

_ Dear God, do I deserve to end up in hell? Would you let me be in paradise to see my wife again if I took my own life? Haven’t I suffered enough? _

His thoughts started racing again, why should he stay? Why should he continue, it would only take a few minutes, he could do it while Josh was asleep…

_ Josh…  _

Tyler opened his eyes and looked at himself again. He had to get himself together, he had to stay alive. For him. 

A few more seconds, a few deep breaths and he got calmer again. This entire day was an emotional ride and he didn’t like it at all, but he had known that it would be this way. Eleven years ago he had been in the very same state, depressed, anxious, broken. But this time it was different. This time he wasn’t alone. 

He spat out the toothpaste and rinsed it down the sink just as Josh came back with some fresh clothes and a pathetic looking little plastic stool that didn’t even look like it could hold his weight. Tyler couldn’t help but laugh at the tiny plastic stool and looked up to Josh, who started laughing as well, mainly just because seeing his friend being amused for once made him pretty happy.

“What is that?”, Tyler wanted to know, supporting himself on the sink again because laughing actually hurt, but he still found that thing so funny.

“I don’t even know? It’s a plastic chair for children? Just shut up and be happy you don’t have to stand.”, Josh joked and Tyler still laughed, even though he felt like he was suffocating. Again he wondered what it was that made Josh special enough that he was able cheer him up, even though Tyler felt like dying. Was Blurry right after all? Was he in love or was Josh just different from all the other people he had met in his entire life? 

“You’re not human, are you?”, the dark-haired asked his best friend without actually thinking about what he just said and left Josh startled, as he put down the plastic chair inside of the shower. 

“Are you high on those pain killers or something?”, he replied with a question and chuckled as he started to heat it up for Tyler. Sometimes his best friend was so weird, especially when he said those things entirely out of context. 

“No I meant… Forget it. I just thought about something and… Nevermind.”, he said and tried to get rid of his underwear and socks, but he wasn’t able to move far enough to do it on his own, so he just groaned and clumsily walked over to his friend.

“Josh… Help.”

The pink-haired turned off the water now that it was warm and helped Tyler out of his underpants and socks. He had seen his friend naked so many times before, but being that close to him while he was felt a little awkward, even after all the time they knew each other by now. 

It wasn’t really because being naked in general felt weird to him, but because he had always felt this kind of attraction towards Tyler, and now that he was  _ that _ close, the attraction just grew only stronger. He didn’t just marvel at the physical beauty of the body he wanted to hold,  it was a longing for their hearts to be close, for their hands to hold each other not only too clasp when the fear and pain were getting too much. It was a hope to be so close that he could hold his friend together.  

Josh tried to get rid of those thoughts for now, walked his friend over to the shower and helped him to sit down before he started the water again. Hesitantly he began to shower Tyler, carefully making sure that the water was just the right temperature and that he didn’t hurt him in any way, but his friend seemed to enjoy the warmth on his body. 

The shower was pretty small and half of the water was already splattered on his rug and himself as well, but for now he just ignored the mess he was making.

He turned off the water and opened the shampoo bottle, put a little bit of the liquid in his hands and started washing Tyler’s hair. Somehow it was strange to do that, but on the other hand it also had something satisfying, especially since the dark-haired had his eyes still closed and a relaxed impression on his face. Josh liked to look at him, especially now that he had an excuse for staring.  He enjoyed the view of the water running down Tyler’s face, more appealing than the former tears. How beautiful he was when he looked so calm, for once not seeming to think about all his pain… Josh caught himself observing a single drop of water that ran down from his face to his shoulders and down on Tyler’s bruised chest. After all that had happened to him, even after his body was damaged, he was still so beautiful…  

“You would have made a good nurse, Spooky. Or a hairdresser.”, Tyler said a few moments later and woke Josh up from his dreamy thoughts. Shyly he giggled at his friend’s suggestion.. This wasn’t really something he would have wanted to do with his life, since he preferred not to be around strangers too much, but still he took it as a compliment.

“Doing the best I can here. Do you need help for your body as well or can you handle that on your own?”, Josh asked his friend, since he wasn’t really sure if Tyler really needed him to do that as well. After all, he just wanted to make sure, even though something inside him hoped that Tyler would need his help. He just wanted to touch him softly, caress the pain away.

_ Why am I even thinking this? God, I shouldn’t be thinking this at all… _

“Could you just do it? Just be gentle, please. I’m really hurting right now…”, Tyler replied without even opening his eyes. He probably could have washed his body on his own, but somehow he wanted Josh to do it, even though he was trying to persuade himself that it was better this way, so he wouldn’t be in any more pain afterwards. 

The pink-haired was as gentle as he could as he started to spread the shower gel on Tyler’s bruised chest, carefully moving on to his arms, trying not to think about what he was doing here right now. He noticed that Tyler had his eyes still closed, seeming like he was enjoying it as much as Josh himself did, but on the other hand there was the possibility that he was just in pain and tried to cope that way. Usually, Josh was perfectly able to discern what his best friend was thinking, but right now he was so busy hiding from his own thoughts, that he couldn’t really tell what Tyler was thinking right now.

_ Get yourself together, Josh. He’s your best friend. This is an awkward situation, but it needs to be done so just stop it right here _ ., he admonished himself and continued with Tyler’s legs, but left his private parts out. It was hard enough not to stare at him, so he surely wouldn’t start to touch him anywhere near. 

What Josh had wondered about before had actually been true. The dark-haired had enjoyed this more than he should, but as soon as Josh was done and started the water again, he felt guilt arising inside him.  _ Why _ did he love it that much? He wasn’t supposed to enjoy it, he had just lost his wife, how could it feel so good to be touched by someone so soon again?

_ “It’s obviously because we both feel kinda lonely and crave for human interaction. We both enjoyed this, just saying.” _ , he could hear Blurry talking inside his head and almost cringed at his voice. So he had been awake the entire time, just waiting silently in the back of his head? Why the hell was he doing this all the time?

_ “Gosh, would you kindly not panic? Seriously, can we just have a conversation without hard feelings for once?”,  _ Blurry demanded and somehow Tyler managed to remain calm this time. At least the short conversation with his headmate distracted him from what Josh was doing; and also now that he knew Blurry had liked this as well, he could just persuade himself that this had only been his headmate’s feelings, and not his own. 

_ So, this is how we handle it now? You bother me every now and then without any warning and make me uncomfortable? _ , Tyler asked him and waited for an answer, but same as before, Blurry was just gone again. What was going on here? Was he just pissed at him for low-key panicking again, or was it for saying that he was bothering him? 

Tyler opened his eyes just as Josh began to wash off the soap and weakly smiled at his best friend. He just realized that he should maybe say something, anything, just to loosen up this awkward situation a little bit.

“Thank you for helping me with this.”, the dark-haired told his friend, but Josh just shook his head, carefully stroking through Tyler’s hair with his hands to help the water rinsing out the shampoo, which painted white foam on the wet skin and then vanished through the drain.

“Of course, man. I wouldn’t want you to share this awkward moment with anyone else but me.”, he replied and they both started laughing. That comment finally took away the tension between them, even though Josh still felt this  confusing hint of arousal. It wasn’t helping that he himself wasn’t wearing anything but his shorts, while Tyler was entirely naked, but at least he could handle this situation a lot easier right now.

“Good, so this actually was awkward. I already thought it was just me.”, the dark-haired replied, still smiling as Josh turned off the water again and helped him to get up. His chest was still hurting, but the warm water had actually helped him a bit with the pain; also he finally felt like human being again.

Josh handed his friend a towel and then realized that Tyler probably needed help with this as well, so he walked over and started to wipe his friend dry. It was a little less awkward with the towel cloth between them, but after all it still felt arousing yet wrong to him. 

After he was done, he helped Tyler into some fresh clothes and walked him over to the couch so he could rest for a little while. After all, this must have been quite stressful with an injury like this.

“I’m gonna quickly shower as well and then I’ll make us some breakfast, alright?”, he asked his friend and gave him a blanket so he wouldn’t get cold. After Josh had left the windows open half the other day it was still pretty cold in his living room.

“Thanks. And yeah sounds good, I’m starving to be honest.”, Tyler admitted and pulled the blanket over him as far as he could. Actually he had been hungry since yesterday evening, but after a day like this he didn’t really felt like eating anything anymore. Maybe this was the reason he felt so weak at the moment? At least he hadn’t eaten for over a day by now.

“Yeah, same. I’ll hurry, okay?”, he promised and walked over to the bedroom to get some fresh clothes for himself before he went to the bathroom as well. The entire room was still misty and the mirror was too steamy to see himself in it. Josh put down the fresh clothes and wiped over the mirror with his hands so he was able to see himself. He also hadn’t showered since they’ve gotten to the hospital and his hair was oily by now and already sticked to his head, also he really needed to shave. Almost mechanically he reached for his electric razor and started to get rid of his stubbles, while his mind was already somewhere else again.

It bothered him that he was so attracted to his best friend, especially so shortly after Tyler’s wife had passed. 

_ Maybe it’s just because he’s lonely… I am empathic after all, maybe those are partly his emotions as well? _ , he wondered, but deep inside him he already knew that this was not quite true. These feelings had been inside him for a much longer time, but he had always just suppressed them. It had been easy for him as long as he knew that Tyler was happy, as long as Jenna was around, reminding him in the most adorable, yet painful ways that his best friend belonged to her, but now she was gone. And right now, his best friend wasn’t happy at all. Theoretically, Josh would be able to change this.

He started to hate himself for thinking this way, started to hate every single thought he had about Tyler, for he knew it was inappropriate, for he knew this thoughts shouldn’t even be there. How could he even consider something like this, especially so shortly after Jenna had passed?

_ God, stop it. Just stop this crap right now. You shouldn’t even consider this! He’s your best friend and his wife just died! What is wrong with you, you worthless, pathetic excuse for a human being! _

The feeling of worthlessness had risen quickly, hurting in his chest. 

Josh put the razor away and took a few deep breaths to calm down. He could feel anxiety mixed with a certain kind of self-hate coming up inside him, and it wasn’t helpful. As always, it made him feel like he was worthless, fake, that the world would have been better off without him, and even though he knew that none of this was true, that he was loved, that he was needed, it just didn’t feel like it.

_ Get yourself together. Tyler needs you to be strong now. Be strong for him. _ , Josh convinced himself and looked up into the mirror. The stubbles were gone, but his self-hate was still there, still staring at him out of those sad, brown eyes.

_ Screw it. _

He turned away, took off his underwear and stepped into the shower. His entire bathroom was messy, their dirty clothes were covering the floor some of them soaked with water, but Josh didn’t care to clean it up right now. All he wanted was to get his mind off things and the dirt off his skin. 

The warm water immediately helped him to feel better. He had missed this so much, but during their time at the hospital he hadn’t dared to leave the room longer than a few minutes, so he had just used a washrag to clean himself a little. 

For a moment he was calm, almost tranquilized by the warmth and the fresh smell of shampoo in his hair, but it didn’t take too long until his thoughts came back.

Josh started to think about Tyler again, and even though he tried to avoid it, tried to get rid of those - in his eyes - condemnable thoughts, they just wouldn’t leave his head. He wanted to kiss him again like he did this morning, wanted to see him naked again, longed to touch his skin again, sooth it, chase the pain away with his caressing, not leaving out any bit of the other’s body, even making his way down to…

_ Just shut up! Stop it right here! _

The pink-haired opened his eyes and turned the water ice cold, almost screamed as he started to feel the pain. It hurt like hell, but it was not enough. He wanted to punish himself for his thoughts, wanted to punish himself to stop feeling guilty about it. He was sure that God knew about his thoughts as well and it made him anxious. What would he think of him? Would he judge him? He just needed to make himself suffer for this.

_ I’m a horrible person. I don’t even deserve to be Tyler’s friend. I don’t deserve anything… _

He stopped the water and stepped out of the shower, not caring about the water dripping from his body, shaking from the cold and barely able to feel his own hands. There had to be something, anything he could take to hurt himself. 

The only thing that caught his eye were the tiny, silver manicure scissors he had hardly ever used before. They were just lying there, on the small shelf over the sink, almost screaming for his attention. He knew it would hurt. He knew those scars would be ugly, but right now he wanted nothing but that. All he could think about was paying for his sins, making up for them to wash himself clean from his guilt.

Slowly he reached out his hand and grabbed them, turning them around in his hands for a few times before he sat down on the cold bathroom floor.

_ Tyler must not see my scars.  _

This was the only thought that kept him from cutting his wrists. 

_ Tyler shouldn’t see it, Tyler cannot know. _

He looked down on his bare legs and almost smiled as he opened the scissors and positioned the cold metal blades on his skin. 

_ You’re pathetic, Josh. So incredibly pathetic.  _

The first cut. He waited for the blood to gather, looking at the small red dots that grew bigger, until their surface tension wasn’t enough to keep the drops together any longer, watching them as they started to drip down.

_ You deserve this. You’re nothing but a pervert that wants to take advantage of his best friend. Go on, continue. You’re not done here. _

He cut another time and another, repeated to do this until the blood was dripping down on the bathroom floor, then closed the scissors and stabbed them into his skin without hesitation. The pain was overwhelming and he began to cry, but the urge to continue was finally gone and the voices in his head were silent.

He pulled out the scissors and threw them into the sink, then buried his face in his hands, still crying, letting the blood continue to drop down on the cold floor. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure why all this just happened.  It had been okay for months. He had felt good, had his urges under control, and now it had been his own thoughts that had defeated him today .  This entire morning had been pretty horrible, especially now that he had just given in to his demons.

To avoid that the guilt would rise again he took another few deep breaths but still felt week. Nevertheless, he forced himself to allow the thought that  probably everyone relapsed once in awhile. That this could happen.

_ It’s okay, Josh. You’re not as terrible as you feel right now. It’s alright. Clean yourself up and don’t think about it anymore. You can’t help your feelings. And if you admit it, you’ve always loved him. It was over the moment he first smiled at you. You don’t have to justify yourself in front of anyone, not even in front of God. He made you this way. He knows.  _

Josh looked up and wiped away his tears. It was true. He had always known it, had always thought about Tyler this way, but until now he had been able to push those thoughts away. It was different since Jenna was gone. He had never felt guilty when she was still alive, because he had known there was no way he would ever end up with his best friend. She had been the one Tyler had chosen, but now that she was gone, there was a chance, a very slight chance that he might decided for Josh this time. 

_ I’m so sorry, Jenna… _ , he thought and finally started to clean off the blood.


	6. So very far from fine...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> I FINALLY made it. I was really depressed lately, so the writer's block hit me hard. Hope you can forgive me.
> 
> This will be more of a filler chapter, but it's still really important for the rest of the story.   
> I hope you'll enjoy it anyway, let me know what you think!

The rest of the day felt a lot less draining.

Josh had prepared breakfast for them - and they spent most of the time watching some shows on Netlfix. 

None of them felt a lot like talking, especially not Josh after what he had done to himself in the bathroom. He felt guilty and angry about it. After all this time he had just relapsed without even trying to pull himself together.

_ What if Tyler heard something and just pretends that everything is fine? He probably just knows because of the leggings I’m wearing… but on the other hand it’s still pretty cold in here. No… He can’t know, he would have asked me… wouldn’t he? _

Every now and then Josh looked over to his friend, but he didn’t seem to notice anything at all. Tyler was just focused on the show, at least so it seemed. Josh couldn’t tell if he was actually watching it or if his mind was racing again, but for now he looked perfectly calm.

_ Should I dare to mention the funeral? Is he stable enough for this? _ , Josh wondered, but he already felt like he knew the answer. If he started this conversation, there wouldn’t be a good outcome, one way or the other. If Tyler broke down, Blurry would surely take his chance to front, and even if not, his friend would go through all the agony again.

“Josh, you’ve been staring at me for solid five minutes now, d’you wanna take a picture of my face or just tell me what you’re thinking about?”, Tyler eventually said, and only then the pink-haired realized that he had been shamelessly staring at his friend. He felt his face getting a bit hot, his cheeks probably already as pink as his hair, but he tried to joke about it to make it less awkward. 

“It’s just, your face is so perfect, man. Like, wow, just can’t help it. You look so much like the bathroom trashcan, you know? Just awesome.”, he exaggerated and Tyler actually chuckled about his lame joke. It gave the pink-haired a warm feeling inside his guts that he was actually still able to make his friend laugh with his nonsense. 

“Ah, you and that trashcan, you got something going on? Something I should know about?”, the dark-haired deadpanned and Josh just nodded. 

“You got me. Sorry to disappoint you, but my heart belongs to her.”

“Ah yeah, what a shame. I’m sorry I can’t be her.”

For a moment there was silence between them before they both started to laugh again. Tyler instantly held his damaged ribs and coughed a few times, closing his eyes and grimacing with pain. It had felt good to laugh, but on the other hand his chest was feeling like it was on fire again. 

“Can’t wait for this crap to heal…”, he added after he finally stopped coughing and turned over to Josh. 

“So, what did you wanna tell me?”, he picked up his former question again, leaving his friend with a sigh on his lips. How was he supposed to even start this conversation? It’s not something anyone was prepared to talk about. 

“I think it’s not the right time.”, Josh answered after a few seconds, but he knew that the dark-haired wouldn’t give up on this so easily. What he didn’t yet know, was the fact that Blurry was already active again. 

_ Mhm, interesting. What do you think he’s hiding from you? Have you seen him staring at you? Maybe he’s into you, like you’re into him? _ , Tyler could hear Blurry in the back of his head, but decided not to listen to his headmate, even though his sudden appearance had scared him a bit.

“Come on Josh, just tell me.”, he pressed his friend, even though he knew he shouldn’t always do that. Tyler couldn’t really handle it if someone tried to keep a secret from him, no matter if it was about him or something else. His thoughts were already racing again, giving him anxiety, for his mind could make up the worst scenarios imaginable. Deep inside he knew that it wasn’t anything to be scared of, but it had always been felt like as if his anxiety had a mind of it’s own, intoxicating him with intrusive thoughts. 

Josh knew how his friend felt about it and hated himself for staring at Tyler without even noticing it, but now there was no turning back. What should he say? How would Tyler react to this? Was there a way to make this talk less painful? Right now he wished his ex-girlfriend would be here, for Debby always knew how to word things right. At least, thinking about her gave him an easy start for this unpleasant conversation. 

“Alright… Debby texted me this morning and she brought something up we might should think about soon.”, Josh started carefully, unsure how to finish this sentence. To his surprise, the dark-haired took this burden of his shoulders.

“She wanted to know about the funeral, right?”, Tyler asked him dryly and immediately turned his head away, looking at his feet. Josh had known it, this was definitely not the right time, but it was the only time. They needed to talk about this sooner or later, and this thought had silently lingered in the back of his mind since he had learned about the accident. 

“Yeah… I thought we should maybe call her parents. They’ve surely organized most of it by now. Just so we… you know…”, Josh stuttered, unsure what he even wanted to say. He could see that Tyler was hurting because of this, but now that they started, he couldn’t just change the topic again. 

“You’re right. Could you get me my phone from the bedroom?”, the dark-haired asked his friend after a few minutes and already wondered what they would say to him when he called after such a long time. 

There were probably several dozen calls after they’ve been visiting him at the hospital, but he had never returned them, acting like he hadn’t seen them at all. Would they be angry at him? No, probably not. But they wouldn’t be to satisfied either.

_ What do you even care about it? She’s dead and gone, what do you need her family for now? I just don’t get it. It’s not like you’ve been married to her family, have you?,  _ Blurry wanted to know, but Tyler tried to ignore him for a little bit longer. Right now, his lack of empathy was the last thing he needed. 

Josh had gotten up and handed him the phone. For a painfully long time he was just staring at it, unsure if he really wanted to dial their number, a feeling of anger slowly starting to seethe inside him. He wanted to throw this goddamn phone against the wall, contentedly watching it burst into a million pieces, but he remained calm and finally called.

 

***

 

The call had almost lasted twenty minutes and went a lot smoother than they both had expected. Jenna’s parents hadn’t been mad at Tyler at all, they’ve just been really worried about him. After all, Jenna had of course told them about her husband's mental illnesses; and especially because they knew how depressed he was, they had been wondering if something might had happened to him. Her mother admitted that she even thought about calling the police this morning until she had seen Josh’s tweet. 

_ “This is not your fault. Don’t blame yourself for this.”  _ and  _ “Jenna would have wanted you to stay strong.”  _ were just some of the things they told him, but none of this really cheered him up. He already knew that it wasn’t his fault, that it had been the truck driver who had killed his wife, but nevertheless it felt like it had been Tyler himself who was to blame for the accident. Yes, Jenna would have wanted him to stay strong, but while she was in heaven with God, he remained down here without her, which felt like hell already.

Yet, he had thanked them for their kind words and had even managed a smile, although only Josh had been able to see it. 

They had told them that the funeral would be in two days from now and they had asked Tyler to make a speech for Jenna. The dark-haired had felt like his intestines had just dropped on the floor and his heart was feeling so heavy. This was it. In two days it would be even more real.

He had closed his eyes and handed his phone over to Josh after they had hung up, trying to breathe steadily, which was getting harder every second. All those feelings inside him were fighting against each other, fighting against him, they wanted him to break, wanted him to scream, to cry, wanted to get out of this body which seemed way too small for the intensity of those emotions. Instead of giving in to them, he remained calm on the outside and did nothing instead. Despite what he was feeling, there wouldn’t have been energy left to do anything. The only reaction his body could manage was his muscles getting tense, which was only causing more pain and drained the remaining energy even faster. 

_ What is this called? It is really unpleasant,  _ Blurry wanted to know, and since he had asked nicely for once, Tyler was actually willing to answer his question

“It’s called grief.”, he thought, his eyes still closed, slowly drifting deeper into his mind. If he opened them now, he would be back in the living room, back with Josh, back in this depressing reality of which he didn’t want to be a part anymore. 

It felt like only seconds later, that he found himself back in Josh’s bedroom, sitting face-to-face with Blurry. His red eyes stared at him without blinking, and his creepy smile was marring his face again, that face that looked so similar to his own. 

“I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.”, Blurry said, still grinning at his counterpart. He found it nice, not being alone up here for once, having someone to actually communicate with, instead of those steamy windows he was hardly able to look out most of the time. Tyler was not the best headmate he could imagine, but somehow there was a wish forming inside of Blurry, the desire to actually get along and communicate with him, even though he was not yet sure how to accomplish this. Tyler’s answer, however, stole his thunder right away. 

“I never meant to come here.”

There was a moment of silence between them, before Blurry sighed and leaned back on the bed again. He didn’t want to care what Tyler thought of him, but he would definitely be a lot better if someone would actually acknowledge him for once. Since he had gotten more conscious, there was a lot that had changed for Blurry. By now there were things he wanted, things he wished for, and one of those things was interaction with other humans. He didn’t really feel like one of them yet, but he knew he could be. But he could also be a lot worse than them.

“Then why are you here?”, he asked him with a pissed undertone, slightly turning his head so he was able to see Tyler.

“I don’t know. I just didn’t want to be outside, I guess.”, he replied, knowing that he still had to get back sooner or later. The time in his mind seemed to pass differently than on the outside. What seemed like minutes and hours in here, was obviously only seconds out there.

“Well, you could still stay here and let me get out for a while. Or are you still scared about me hurting your little loverboy, hun?”, the red-eyed wanted to know, smiling as Tyler blinked a few times, for he looked so startled about his suggestion. 

“No. Definitely not at the moment. And why do you keep calling him that? You know there’s something called  _ friendship _ ?”, Tyler wanted to know, but Blurry sat up again, now seeming to be interested.

“So, you’re actually considering letting me out?”, he asked his headmate, but the dark-haired sighed again.

“As I said, not right now and not without some rules. But I don’t wanna talk about this now. There are more important things I have to handle first.”, Tyler explained, unsure about this entire situation. Why was he even talking to Blurry? What was it he expected to get out of this conversation.

“Your dead wife? How is she more important than me? I’m still alive and she isn’t. Tss, as if you’d ever be up to talk about this. You’re probably still denying my existence, little pansy. Whatever. Just fuck off.”, Blurry replied, obviously pissed at Tyler. He knew that insulting his headmate surely wouldn’t have a positive effect on neither of them, but he just couldn’t hold himself back. After all this years in the darkness there was so much anger inside him, so much that he needed to get out. And somehow, even though he didn’t want to admit it, it hurt him every time when his headmate told him that he was unimportant or  _ less _ important than something or someone else. 

Unsure what to do with this statement, Tyler just tried to ignore it. Of course Jenna was more important to him. She had been his wife, and even though Blurry might have lived in his head, he only knew about his existence for a few weeks. Also he treated him like shit. Tyler might feel sorry for him, being trapped inside a body that wasn’t his own, but the way Blurry behaved towards him, stole away that little bit of empathy from Tyler’s mind, for he didn’t notice that his words actually did some damage to his headmate.

He wanted to reply something, but before he could think about what to say, Josh’s voice pulled him back out and within a blink of an eye he was back on the livingroom couch. 

“Did you even listen to me?”, the pink-haired wanted to know, but Tyler needed a moment to fully come back to reality. His friend had obviously been telling him something, but he hadn’t heard a single word of it. 

“Uhh, sorry. I was kinda in the zone.”, he quickly answered, hoping that Josh wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.

The pink-haired wasn’t sure if he should ask his friend if Blurry had been talking to him again, but then he decided not to. After all, Tyler didn’t seem scared or anything, maybe he had just needed a moment to come to terms with the fact that the funeral would be in two days already. 

“It’s alright. I just wanted to know if it would help you if you wrote something about her. A song, like you usually do…”, Josh asked again, his voice sounding really insecure. He knew that Tyler normally wrote down everything he was feeling, everything that somehow upset or concerned him, that made him happy and cheerful or threw him off the track. Not all the things he wrote became songs in the end, most of them just landed in the big black folder he was taking with him everywhere he was going. Not even Josh had read them all and he never would. He knew this was Tyler’s soul, his deepest fears and insecurities, the secrets he hadn’t shared with anyone, the things that meant most to him in the entire world; and Josh would never dare to look through them. 

Tyler nodded and sighed, then leaned back on the couch, his eyes closed so he could hold back his tears. He actually had thought about it before. Jenna had always enjoyed listening to him playing and singing, not his own songs, mostly, but she had loved the covers of her favorite songs he’d learned to play for her. If he actually played something for her, it had to be her favorite song, a song that had meant the most to her. 

“Yeah, I don’t know…”, he replied, his voice a bit higher than usual for he needed to pull himself together. Just thinking about it hurt. Tyler had his eyes still closed, remembering the day they had married, how she had been walking towards him in this beautiful, white dress, her eyes and smile shining brighter than the sun, how they had been standing at the alter, happily promising to be with each other…  _ Until death do us part... _

The dark-haired had started crying. He could feel Josh’s arms around him a second later and was thankful that he didn’t have to face this all by himself.

“You don’t have to…”, Josh whispered, but Tyler shook his head, his eyes still closed as the pink-haired raised a hand to wipe the tears of his face. For a second, Josh looked at the tears he now had on his hand, watched them running down his arm until they fell and landed on the floor. A part of him wanted to kiss the remaining tears off his cheek, but instead he just pulled Tyler closer, gently kissing his hair. 

“I know… But it feels like the right thing to do.”, Tyler replied and slowly managed to dry his tears. He felt so warm and safe in Josh’s arms, enjoying the gentle kisses he was giving him every now and then. Without him, he would be so lost; no, he would be dead by now. Josh had saved him more than once, and so did Jenna. But she was gone and Tyler wouldn’t see her for a long, long time.

_ I know you believe in God, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll actually see her again. You should stop dwelling in the past and move on, _ Blurry interfered, leaving Tyler with deep sadness inside him. It had only been a few weeks, how was he supposed to move on? How could his headmate even consider this being a reasonable statement?

“If you ever love someone besides yourself, you’ll realize that you can’t just move on if that person dies.”, he told Blurry, snuggling up to Josh a bit more just to remain feeling safe. His headmate made sure that he wasn’t feeling all too well as soon as he started talking to him, but as long as his best friend was there, Tyler would be able to get through this. 

He finally opened his eyes again, looking up to Josh, just to see a concerned but understanding expression on his face.

Again, none of them said a word. There was this tension between them again, and although Josh was sure that it was one-sided, Tyler could feel it too. There were a hundred thoughts running through his head, none of them clear enough to actually grab them, but he knew that he had felt like this since a really long time. Even when Jenna had still be with them, there had been moments between him and Josh where he had felt this electricity, but since his wife was gone, that feeling seemed to be getting stronger.

Tyler wondered what this feeling actually was. He had felt like this towards Jenna and Josh since the day he had met either of them. Sometimes he had found it a bit strange that he felt towards his best friend the way he felt for his wife, but until now it had never been bothering him.

_ Just to clarify, this is the reason I call him your loverboy,  _ Blurry told his headmate and this time, Tyler wasn’t able to ignore his headmate’s statement. Maybe he was right in this point after all. Maybe the dark-haired had… No. No, he wasn’t ready to just accept this.

“This is a lie and you know it, Blurry. You have no idea how love feels like, so stop misinterpreting my thoughts to drag me down.”, Tyler said, unaware of the fact that he had just said this out loud.

Josh blinked a few times, wondering what Blurry had told him, but he didn’t want to ask his friend, even though he had a strong feeling - or was it just a desire? -  that they had been talking about him.

“Is your buddy acting up again?”, Josh wanted to know, but Tyler, obviously too upset to answer, just shrugged. What was he supposed to say? He hadn’t even planned on saying this out loud, but now that he did he couldn’t help but wonder what Josh was thinking about this conversation. Also it scared him that he hadn’t even noticed that he just said something out loud. Was he losing his mind entirely? Should he be scared? 

Meanwhile, Josh was still gently caressing Tyler’s back, thinking about something to say that could cheer his friend up, but there was nothing he could think of besides  _ “It’s going to be alright”  _ and other stuff like this, which no one ever wanted to hear in those situations. He was worried about Tyler. This entire situation with Blurry seemed to be getting out of hand. 

Since his headmate had first shown up, Blurry seemed to have become more and more conscious and seemed to be awake almost the entire time by now. What if he managed to break through and come to the front, pushing Tyler in the back and leaving him there, just like Blurry was now?

It was a thought that scared Josh, but he knew it would happen someday. He couldn’t just leave Blurry in the dark the entire time. After all, he seemed to be a person, just like Tyler was, maybe a bit more troubled and scarier, less empathic and maybe even dangerous, but if they let him front, maybe he would change, become a good person? Maybe Josh could even help him, maybe they could be friends after all. 

But now was just not the time. The funeral would be in two days and they really needed to make some preparations…

“Tyler? Can… Can Blurry hear me?”, Josh wanted to know, a bit insecure about his question, for he seemed to know the answer already.

_ Yes, I can. _

“Yes, he can. Why?”,Tyler wanted to know, his voice sounding like he was barely listening, still buried deep inside his thoughts, but Josh knew there was nothing he could do about that. The dark-haired had often spaced out like this, maybe answering and reacting, but not really listening. It would take some time for him to snap back out of it, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, but that was okay for Josh. Unfortunately, he came back a lot quicker this time, even though the pink-haired had hoped that Tyler wouldn’t even remember this conversation in the end. 

“Okay, listen… Blurry, the funeral is in two days. This is… This is a really important thing for Tyler, and for me too. So, how about we make a deal? You try to stay low and not… not upset Tyler too much until this is all over. And after that you could come out, if that’s alright?”, Josh asked, still not sure if this was the best idea, but it was at least something, even though the dark-haired didn’t seem to be so happy about this.

_ Sounds good to me. Two days is nothing after all those years. _

Tyler felt himself getting angry and scared about this thought, and even though he was trying to hold back his feelings, he simply couldn’t manage. 

“Fine. But I swear to god, Blurry, if you gonna fuck this up I’ll fry you out of my brain.”, he replied with an aggressiveness that Josh had never heard before. Tyler had seldom been angry and never actually raised his voice, no matter how upset he had been. This was new and equally scary, but he just pretended to overhear it. After all, this reaction was more than natural. Everyone would have been scared… 


End file.
